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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24510109">Third Person, Singular</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antosha/pseuds/Antosha'>Antosha</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aurors, Bi-Curiosity, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexuality, Community: flamingnargle, F/F, F/M, Fantasy Partner Sex, Fantasy Sex, Female Rolf Scamander, Femslash, First Time, Grief/Mourning, Head Auror Harry Potter, Journalist Ginny Weasley, Light Bondage, Lost Love, Luna Lovegood Being Luna Lovegood, Minor Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley - Freeform, Minor Hannah Abbott/Neville Longbottom, Minor Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander, Minor Parvati Patil/Dean Thomas, Minor Victoire Delacour/Teddy Lupin, Multi, Mystery, Pansexual Luna Lovegood, Past Character Death, Past Luna Lovegood/Dean Thomas, Poly triad, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Post-War, Second Chances, Sex Games, Sexual Fantasy, The Quidditch Pitch: More Than Two, Threesome - F/F/M, flamingnargle's Flame On! Challenge, post-epilogue, sexually explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:01:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>49,106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24510109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antosha/pseuds/Antosha</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She never left those who loved her. (H/G, H/G/L, G/L)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue — Pluperfect</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was my entry in the flamingnargle Flame On! III challenge. The prompt was <b>Friends, Friends, Friends....</b> I had a whole other fic going in my head, but an earlier entry in the challenge sparked this idea, and I couldn't shake it.</p><p>Now complete at twelve chapters (plus a prologue and an epilogue)! Luna would tell us that <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24128329/chapters/58456009">twelve is one of the most powerful magical numbers</a>. :-)</p><p>The first chapters are H/G with some fantasy play, for those of you who think of two as company and three as a crowd. Coming chapters will... challenge that view, however. Just a heads-up. ;-)</p><p>Warnings: Het. Implied character death and mild angst. Fantasy role-playing, and we're not talking D&amp;D. Polyamory and bisexuality in later chapters.</p><p>Thanks to aberforths_rug for looking this over (and for so much more), and to the author of the fic that inspired me—<a href="http://community.livejournal.com/flamingnargle/93976.html">"Ginny Saw Her First" by lynnraines</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="">Ginny almost felt as if she might have to thank her best friend for this. Not that Luna had done anything other than be born on first November. But...</p><p class=""><em>Ooo</em>.</p><p class="">“I think this is why magic was invented,” sighed Ginny, squeezing Harry tight. Leaving him speechless.</p><p class="">They were fifteen feet up in the air — a simple spell to cast, a tough one to keep going through three rounds of fantastic make-up sex, even with her wand gripped tight. But here they were, slowly orbiting the little chandelier in the Grimmauld sitting room. The first two fucks had been properly acrobatic, but this time they were just floating, drifting. Harry was planted deep inside of her, happily letting her do all of the work for once. And all of the work she felt up to was contracting her pussy around that wonderful, familiar cock. One pulse at a time.</p><p class="">Harry didn’t seem to mind. Eyes closed. Mouth open. No. He didn’t mind.</p><p class="">How many times had they done this? Well, not <span class=""><em>this</em></span>, because a <span class=""><em>flying fuck</em></span> wasn’t supposed to be an actual thing. Except, obviously, magic. But they’d fucked dozens, hundreds of times over the past two years since…</p><p class="">Since.</p><p class="">
  <em>(Flame and shadows. Smoke and sulphur. Hagrid walking with Harry…)</em>
</p><p class="">And yet every time felt like a first time.</p><p class="">She hoped it would always be that way.</p><p class="">Actually, she didn’t hope. She just felt. No future. No past. Just <span class=""><em>now.</em></span></p><p class="">“Hey, Potter,” she purred, contracting around Harry, “you going to come inside of me?“</p><p class="">He groaned and tried to thrust, but of course that just pushed her away — flying fuck. He whimpered and reached out to pull her to him, but Ginny giggled and pulled his hands away from her ass. “No, baby. Let me.” She looped her calves behind <span class=""><em>his </em></span>ass, pulling him back deep into her, and now she answered his groan.</p><p class="">They were late for Luna’s party now for sure — Ginny would feel awful later, probably… maybe. Would have to apologize to Loony — and to Dean, which was always kind of weird. Weird that her first boyfriend, who’d been such a hurry to become her first lover, was now her best friend’s boyfriend, but so determined to take things slow….</p><p class="">
  <em>(Luna’s present… have to thank her...)</em>
</p><p class="">But now? Now she didn’t give a flying fuck. “So,” Ginny moaned into Harry's ear as her pussy <span class=""><em>squeezed</em></span>, “no more sparklies for other girls after this, yes?”</p><p class="">He pulled his face from where it was lodged against her neck. His eyes, so dark that they looked almost black, devoured her. “No sparklies. No girls. Only you, Ginny Weasley. Forever.”</p><p class=""><span class=""><em>Oh, God….</em></span> She pulled him deep into her with her legs, and he began to thrust again.</p><p class="">And they tumbled through the air and into each other and into the future.</p><p class="">: :</p><p class="">When they Apparated into the entryway of the Wyvern, Ginny and Harry were assaulted by a flood of Cryptkicker 5 music and already-drunk partiers.</p><p class="">“HarrynGinny!” shouted Padma Patil, lifting a pitcher of ale that sloshed over her sister Parvati’s head.</p><p class="">“Hero Harry!” shouted someone else, and Ginny could feel her boyfriend tense up.</p><p class="">She squeezed his hand and stepped in front of him.</p><p class="">Hannah and Neville — two friends Ginny hadn’t ever seen quite so pissed — pressed up. Hannah yelled in Ginny’s ear, “So’s the birthday girl with you?”</p><p class="">Ginny blinked at her.</p><p class="">Neville, usually one of their quietest classmates, bellowed, “Luna coming?”</p><p class="">Harry’s hands closed around Ginny’s shoulders. “Luna’s not here?”</p><p class="">“She didn’t come with Dean?” Ginny searched for and found her ex-boyfriend, who was standing over by the bar with his usual partner in crime, Seamus.</p><p class="">“Dean,” Harry barked in that way of his that managed to silence the whole crowd — even with “Enter Bagman” howling over the enchanted speakers — “have you Floo'd Luna’s house?”</p><p class="">Dean nodded his head. “Didn’t answer. Thought she must be with you guys.“ His coffee-dark skin looked pale — for him, at least. “Worried.”</p><p class="">Seamus clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder and laughed, “Let’s all go see what’s taking the guest of honor so fecking long, shall we?”</p><p class="">As if a balloon had broken, the hollering started back up, and everyone flooded out the Wyvern’s front door.</p><p class="">“To the Lovegood’s house!” called Harry, and even drunk, the whole crowd of former DA members followed his orders, Apparating toward Loony’s.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Third Person, Singular</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="">“Funny, isn’t it?” sighed Harry. “Being here alone.”</p><p class="">Snuggling up next to him, Ginny nodded. She followed his gaze up to where she had known it would rest: Luna’s painted ceiling. <em>Friends, friends, friends…</em></p><p class="">The first day of every November for the past twenty years, they had come to clean up the Lovegoods’ tower, first just the five of them immortalized on the ceiling and Dean, then with some of the greater Weasley clan, then with spouses, and children… People had slowly drifted away after a few years—until the previous year, it had been back to just her and Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hugo and Lily. Lily Luna.</p><p class="">Lily and Hugo were two months into their first year at Hogwarts now; Lily’s letters were still giddy, but they’d already stopped coming every day. And Hermione and Ron had begged off this year—Hermione had had a conference in Buenos Aires, and Ron had explained sheepishly that, with the kids all gone now, it was their first chance for a real trip, a second honeymoon, and of course Ginny didn’t blame them, not after all these years. Even so…</p><p class="">It did seem funny—though not at all amusing—being here with just Harry. All these years, and Ginny hadn’t noticed it; the steady flood of people laughing and yelling and working had obscured the unutterable <em>absence</em>. But all day, as they were hovering on their brooms renewing the waterproofing charms on the outside of the tower, or recasting the Self-dusting Charm that Ginny had learned from her mother as a young girl, she had been overwhelmed by the emptiness of the place, by the utter lack of Luna.</p><p class="">It was only here, staring up at the unmoving painted faces, that Ginny could feel a spark of her girlhood friend’s presence.</p><p class="">Harry snuggled up against her, his hand finding the no-longer-taut flesh of her belly. “Ginny,” he whispered, “It’s been twenty years. Perhaps it’s time—”</p><p class="">“No,” Ginny said. Definitive as always, though she couldn’t ever say why, though she knew that Harry was being reasonable. But even now, after all this time, a part of her <em>knew</em>, absolutely, that Luna was still out there somewhere. Someone so amazing couldn’t simply have <em>died</em>…</p><p class="">As if reading her thoughts, Harry pulled her closer and whispered into her hair, “We searched everywhere, love, you know that. That morning. For weeks after. There was no sign, and no sign of her has ever turned up. Even if she’d lost her memory, or if she were hiding, <em>something</em> would have turned up.”</p><p class="">Ginny shivered, but could not answer him. He had heard all of her arguments before, and had happily supported them. But they both knew that those reasons were far from reasonable—were in fact very Luna-like in their reliance on faith over fact.</p><p class="">“No one believes that Luna cast the spell that killed old Xeno. But someone or some<em>thing</em> did.” Harry’s strong fingers, still agile after all these years, stroked her belly as if she were a colicky baby. “And whatever that <em>thing</em> was outside of the Burrow—”</p><p class="">“—wasn’t Luna,” said Ginny. A bloody mass out in the yard, being pecked at by the chickens; Ginny had found it when she’d gone out to collect the eggs, and the sight, the stench had given her nightmares for years.</p><p class="">Harry sighed. “Probably not. But still—”</p><p class="">She rolled swiftly on top of him and stared down. “One more year.”</p><p class="">He peered up at her quizzically.</p><p class="">“If she hasn’t turned up by her birthday, next Halloween,”—<em>her fortieth—</em>“if there isn’t some new clue to where she is, we can put the tower on the market. And… And put up a headstone for her. One more year.”</p><p class="">Harry smiled and caressed her ear with his thumb. “You still miss her, I know.”</p><p class="">Ginny nodded. It was hard to explain—Luna and Ginny had known each other since they were little, but when Ginny had woken up from the nightmare of their first year at Hogwarts, it had been Luna who had held Ginny together. As much as Harry had saved Ginny—and to this day, the thought of a twelve-year-old Harry venturing into the Chamber of Secrets to rescue <em>her</em> was almost more than Ginny could take—Luna was the one who brought her back to the land of the living. How could anyone so lonely be so loving and lovely? “She was wonderful. She <em>is</em>.”</p><p class="">Harry’s grin broadened. “She was. She is.” He pushed up onto one elbow and kissed her, and for a few minutes, Ginny felt very young, and very alive, and very whole.</p><p class="">After some time, Ginny leaned up from him, grinning herself down at her husband who was looking very self-satisfied there on the lacy bedspread, embroidered unicorns and phoenixes, eagles and dragons gamboling about his head. “You look very pleased, Potter.”</p><p class="">“Well,” Harry answered, “who wouldn’t, getting to look up at a sight as beautiful as you?”</p><p class="">“Flatterer,” she laughed, pleased. “Want to see more?” Before he could answer or she could stop herself, she pulled the tattered Harpies jersey she wore for cleaning over her head.</p><p class="">When she could see again, her husband’s face was slack, wide-eyed. “Bloody hell, Ginny. What’s got into you?”</p><p class="">She snorted. “Way to make a woman feel attractive!” She wriggled her bottom against him and was gratified to feel him respond. “Want me to put it back on?”</p><p class="">“No,” Harry said, his eyes already narrowing to the predatory gaze that she knew was hers alone. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you like this.”</p><p class="">“Naked?” She popped her bra, releasing the breasts that the years and three children had given her, and wiggled against him again, evoking a soft moan. “You scrubbed my back in the tub last night.”</p><p class="">“That’s not what I meant,” growled Harry, cupping each breast in one long-fingered hand, circling each nipple with a calloused thumb. “Randy as a kid.”</p><p class="">She groaned appreciatively as he played with her breasts. “It’s the bed,” she sighed.</p><p class="">Harry stopped. “The bed?”</p><p class="">Ginny felt herself flush and blush. “Luna and I… We used to lie here. Talking about boys. Talking about you.”</p><p class="">His fingers began to explore again. “About me?”</p><p class="">Ginny began push up his shirt—it too was a souvenir of her time with Harpies. “She had a huge crush on you, you know.”</p><p class="">“No, she didn’t.”</p><p class="">“Oh, yes, Harry, yes she did.” She ran her fingertips around <em>his </em>nipples and he shuddered. “We lay on her bed here, just the two of us,”—<em>naked, giggling</em>—“and talked about you, what it would be like to be with you.” <em>Each girl touching herself, never discussing. </em>“Her asking me, once we were together,” Ginny murmured, reaching down with the hand that wasn’t occupied with Harry’s chest and popping the button on his jeans, tugging at his zipper, “what it was like to touch your cock, what it was like to fuck you…”</p><p class="">The cock in question sprang free beneath her. “Can’t imagine Luna ever saying <em>cock…</em>” Harry hissed as her fingers closed around his.</p><p class="">“No,” admitted Ginny, scooting down the bed. “She asked what it was like to have your <em>penis</em> in my <em>vagina</em>, but she was very fond of the word <em>fuck.</em>”</p><p class="">She touched her lips to the head of his cock and he groaned, as she had known he would—groaned and grasped the brass headboard.</p><p class="">She gave his cock a good, long lollipop lick and reached for her wand. “Keep your hands there, Harry,” she said. His eyes, which had been half shut, sprung wide and met hers. She ran her tongue around Harry’s head again. “Trust me.”</p><p class="">He nodded. “I always have.”</p><p class="">Smiling, she cast a spell that bound his hands to the headboard; this much was a game they’d enjoyed before, now and again. “<em>Obscuro</em>,” she whispered, and a blindfold appeared, covering those brilliant green eyes.</p><p class="">“Ginny!” he gasped, jumping as she took him into her mouth—the one part of her that hadn’t changed since they first got together. “What are you—? Merlin!”</p><p class="">She tugged his jeans and pants down and off, leaving him at her mercy. Removing his cock from her mouth and putting on the breathiest voice she could manage, she sighed, “Ginny’s not here just now, Harry. It’s only me. Luna.”</p><p class="">“G-ginny, what—?”</p><p class="">She pulled her hair free of its ponytail and shook it out, letting the free strands trail up his body. “I told you, Harry,” she said, “she’s not here. Only me. And you. And your rather erect penis.” Her hair flowed over his balls and up his cock, and he gasped. “Oooo,” Ginny said, still in the Luna voice, “it’s just as nice as Ginny said.”</p><p class="">He panted, his lips working at producing words that did not come.</p><p class="">Grinning, Ginny worked her own jeans and trainers off. “She’s said that it’s quite nice to fuck you too. She likes fucking you very much.” She straddled him, her open, wet sex embracing his erection.</p><p class="">“I like… f-fucking her too!” Harry hissed, and pushed up with his hips, trying vainly to press into her. Ginny wasn’t ready to give in just yet.</p><p class="">“Hmmm,” she hummed, remembering her friend’s voice, remembering her calm, even tones as she diddled herself, listening to Ginny tell her just what sex was like, with Dean, with Harry. “Would you like to fuck me, Harry? Would you like to place that very nice, erect penis inside of me?”</p><p class="">“Merlin, yes!” gasped Harry. “Ginny!”</p><p class="">“Luna,” sighed Ginny and let her labia run along the length of him.</p><p class="">He groaned deeply. “Okay, okay. Okay.”</p><p class="">“Say my name, Harry. I want to make sure that you want me.”</p><p class="">“God. God.” He bucked and the tip of him just pierced her lips. “Yes. I do. Luna. Luna. Please. Let me fuck you, Luna.”</p><p class="">“Oh, Harry,” laughed Ginny, her pulse racing—it was a challenge to keep her voice soft and airy—“how nice. I have wanted to fuck you for a very long time.”</p><p class="">“I… I’ve wanted to fuck you. Too. Luna.” Suddenly still, Harry’s face darkened. “For a long time.”</p><p class="">“Really?” Ginny blurted in her own voice.</p><p class="">“Yes. When we were… When G-ginny was with Dean.” He held his chin rigid, his lips barely moving. “Wanked all of the time, thinking of her all the time, but she was… And sometimes, I thought about you. About your hair, about your…”</p><p class="">“My?” prompted Ginny, and her breathlessness was less and less an act.</p><p class="">“Breasts. Your breasts. The silver robes you wore to Slughorn’s party, showed off your…. Thought about fucking…”</p><p class="">“My breasts?” Trembling, Ginny leaned forward so that her own pair, of which she’d never been particularly proud, caressed either of his cheeks.</p><p class="">“<em>Yes</em>,” he hissed, turning his head to one side and reaching for a nipple with his lips. When Ginny pulled back before he could reach it, he groaned, pulling at the headboard. “And you. I wanted… want to fuck, fuck you, <em>fuck</em>!”</p><p class="">Grabbing his cock by the base, she pressed down onto him, engulfing him, until his balls pressed against her bum.</p><p class="">“<em>FUCK</em>!” he growled, “Ginny!”</p><p class="">“Ginny’s not here,” she groaned, not able to keep her own low tone from creeping in. Gently, she lifted herself almost entirely off of him. “Luna.”</p><p class="">“Yes, Luna, fuck! Luna,” Harry said, pushing up so that he was sheathed in her again, “want to fuck you, Luna, wanked all of the time, fuck, fucking you, your tits, your <em>arse</em>…”</p><p class="">Now it was Ginny who was groaning, and there was nothing airy in her voice. The image of Harry fisting himself was one of her own oldest, favorite fantasies, and knowing that he’d done it thinking of Luna, lovely, lonely Luna, who had lain on this bed, doing the same thing while thinking of <em>him</em>…</p><p class="">“Luna, fuck, Luna, fuck,” Harry whispered as their bodies fell into a steady, rolling rhythm, pelvis against pelvis. Ginny leaned forward so that her movements and his dragged his pelvis against her clit, and he rewarded himself by capturing at last a bouncing nipple; Ginny groaned. An orgasm was bearing down on her, an avalanche of an orgasm, a volcanic eruption, a tidal wave, and she couldn’t have escaped its embrace even if she’d wanted to—which she didn’t. “Oh, Harry,” she sighed, voice airy and breathless once again. “Harry…”</p><p class="">“Dreamed,” Harry grunted. “Fucking you… Lu… Ginny. Both.”</p><p class="">“<em>Us both</em>?” Ginny howled, ecstatic, and as the orgasm took her, washing her world in light, she saw it—herself and Luna interlocked, mouth to cunt, while Harry fucked Luna, and Ginny licked at them both. Whether the image came from Harry’s head or her own she did not know, nor did she care. She lost herself in the light for a time, and was only brought back to earth when Harry arched up and screamed, his own eruption exploding deep within her.</p><p class="">For a minute or two they lay there panting. Eventually, Ginny flopped back off of her lover, her husband. Picking her wand up once more, she released him from the spells that bound him.</p><p class="">Immediately, he wrapped himself around her. Ginny knew that some men only wanted to roll over and go to sleep after sex—she knew this from Audrey, Angelina and Hermione, so the knowledge was all the less welcome.</p><p class="">But Harry loved to cuddle after a good fuck. It was when he was the most vulnerable, the least guarded. It was then that he revealed the Harry that Ginny knew that no one else had seen, ever.</p><p class="">Wrapping himself around her, legs and arms, he burrowed into her neck. “Sorry,” he said.</p><p class="">“<em>Sorry?</em>” laughed Ginny, still out of breath.</p><p class="">“Telling you…” He sighed. “I was a kid. They were just…”</p><p class="">“Harry,” said Ginny, pulling him even closer. “<em>I </em>was the one who started the game. Of course you were, of course…” She knew that Harry felt guilt even now that it had taken him so long to recognize her—felt that it was somehow his fault that she had dated Michael and Dean, had lost her virginity to their friend before Harry had managed to get his head out of his arse. His fault that he was so uncertain of living that even during their first round together, he hadn’t felt ready for that kind of intimacy. His fault that during the long year that he and she had been separated, he hadn’t contacted her.</p><p class="">Well, that last bit <em>was</em> his fault, but it was ancient history. As to the rest… “Harry, love,” she cooed, “I’m glad. Glad to know you knew how sexy she was. Glad she…” Absurdly, tears seemed to be pushing their way up. “Luna and I, we… We. She would ask me all of these questions about you, about sex, and you, and…”</p><p class="">She willed him to complete the sentence in his head, to get it, but that wasn’t Harry. He lay there, still, silent and patient. It infuriated their children sometimes—as it had infuriated Ginny when her mother finished every sentence for Ginny.</p><p class="">Ginny took a deep breath. “And we—she, but me too—we would, um. Masturbate.”</p><p class="">That got a reaction. “Really?”</p><p class="">“Hmmm. Right here. I thought you’d like that bit.”</p><p class="">“Did…” She could feel his cock jump against her hip. Wanker. “Do girls do that? Together?”</p><p class="">She snorted. “Do boys?”</p><p class="">“No! Not that I know of, at least.” She could feel his lips bend into a grin against the side of her head. “Wish I could have seen that!”</p><p class="">“There’s a shock!” Ginny snorted, pushing him. “You know what I wish?”</p><p class="">“What?”</p><p class="">Again, moist weight pressed up in her throat. “Well, wish she were here, of course. Wish she’d been at our wedding, and the World Cup, she’d have loved that. Knowing the kids. <em>Having</em> kids…” She began to cry in earnest. Harry’s fingers stroked her chin. “Hell, <em>sex. </em>This. She wanted… I wish she <em>had</em> got to shag…”</p><p class="">After a moment, Harry whispered, “You mean, she never did? Not with Dean?”</p><p class="">“No!” laughed Ginny through the tears. “Was driving her mad—well, madder than usual. She was all for it, but Dean… the poor sod thought he’d pushed me too fast, and he was trying to do it <em>right.</em>”</p><p class="">Harry nodded. “He really cared for her.”</p><p class="">“Well, lot of good it did either of them!” Poor Dean. It had taken him years… She shook her head and laughed again. “She used to tell me these elaborate fantasies, how she was going to ‘<em>cross the threshold</em>.’”</p><p class="">“Sounds like she wanted someone to cross <em>her</em> threshold, if you ask me,” Harry joked quietly.</p><p class="">Ginny snorted and swatted him lightly. He had never allowed himself to be much of a twelve-year-old boy—too much time rescuing scrawny little girls from Dark Lords—and so on the rare occasions when his adolescent side made an appearance it was always a bit of a shock. “Someone,” she giggled, still sniffling. “You. Dean. Neville.” <em>I want to feel him inside of me</em>, she’d groaned… “She had this whole idea that it should be like some sort of Druidic rite, which I thought sounded quite kinky. A charmed circle and candles.” <em>A bronze calyx for the blood—earth and metal to contain the power.</em> The whisper beneath the whisper of Luna’s flesh sliding over her own flesh….</p><p class="">“Out under the stars, no doubt,” Harry said, and Ginny could hear an echo of her own love for long-lost, lonely, lovely Luna. “Stoatshead Hill, or the Forbidden Forest.”</p><p class="">“No!” Ginny snorted again. “Kinkier and more boring. Down in the basement, <em>to contain the power released!”</em></p><p class="">They both chuckled. “Which basement? At the Burrow?”</p><p class="">“No, silly! Who’d want to <em>cross the threshold</em> down with the potatoes and turnips, and Mum’s potted meats and apple preserves?”</p><p class="">“There’s an image. Wouldn’t have stopped me, mind,” Harry said. She swatted him again and they both laughed. “Anywhere with you is paradise. Where then?”</p><p class="">“Here, of course. Silly!”</p><p class="">“But there’s no basement here.” He sounded bemused.</p><p class="">“Of course there is, Harry, come on.” She giggled, and then sighed. “Luna’s mum’s workshop.”</p><p class="">“Ginny,” Harry said, slowly. He sat up and peered down at her, his vernal eyes bright in the fading light of the autumn afternoon. “We’ve been cleaning this place for twenty years. A whole team of Aurors went over this place from the ground up. There wasn’t any basement.”</p><p class="">Ginny sat up. “It… was off-limits.” She and Harry stared at each other. “I didn’t think…”</p><p class="">Both of them bolted from the bed and scrambled down the circular staircase, Ginny naked, Harry in only an old, sweat-damp t-shirt, but each clutching a wand.</p><p class="">They reached the ground floor and Harry began to stalk around, searching for an entrance. Ginny tried desperately to remember the one time Luna had shown her the workshop—it had been right after Mrs. Lovegood’s death. They had been nine.</p><p class="">Scooting the kitchen table to one side—it had never been so clutter-free when the tower had been inhabited—and pulling up a rug, she revealed a circular trapdoor made of flagstone.</p><p class="">“Twenty years,” Harry gasped, “and you never <em>mentioned—?</em>”</p><p class="">“<em>I thought you knew!</em>” Ginny shouted aware that neither of them were truly angry—that fear and horror that Luna could have been here all this time… “You said you and the others searched!”</p><p class="">Harry nodded, a grimace twisting his features. “Brody cast a <em>Hominem Revelio. </em>So there couldn’t have been anyone here.”</p><p class="">Ginny heard the awful comfort in that statement. “Anyone alive.”</p><p class="">Harry nodded grimly and reached for the recessed ring. The trapdoor wouldn’t budge. After he cast an unsuccessful Unlocking Charm, Ginny said, “Maybe there’s a password.”</p><p class="">Harry frowned, then smirked. “<em>Snorkack</em>,” he said, and pulled. The door remained frozen. “<em>Humdinger.</em>” Still nothing.</p><p class="">Ginny rested her hand on his shoulder. “Shouldn’t we call for backup, Mr. Head Auror?”</p><p class="">“Probably.” He took a breath. “Do you want to wait, Mrs. Journalist?”</p><p class="">“No,” said Ginny, thinking how ironic it was that she carried that title, which was Luna’s by right. “I want to know.”</p><p class="">Harry nodded again.</p><p class="">She nodded back. “It was her mother’s workshop,” Ginny pointed out. “<em>Luna</em>,” she said, and there was a sigh of released air as the trapdoor popped up slightly. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the ring.</p><p class="">Harry put his hand on hers. “I’ll go first; you cover my back.” Ginny began to argue, and then nodded. He <em>was</em> the senior Auror in the country. After a brief, tight smile, he continued, “Watch for any movement, but don’t cast any spells unless something looks threatening—then we stun and run, okay?”</p><p class="">Again Ginny nodded.</p><p class="">“Don’t touch anything. Stay right behind me…”</p><p class="">“And don’t talk to anything if you can’t see where it keeps its brain, right,” Ginny grumbled.</p><p class="">Harry kissed her. “If she’s… If there’s anything… difficult to look at, don’t feel like you have to. Remember—that room’s been closed for twenty years.”</p><p class="">Again she nodded, and now she was thinking of Bill and his stories of four-thousand-year-old curses in dark Egyptian tombs. “Yes, sir.”</p><p class="">He kissed her briefly, then stepped to the opposite side of the trapdoor. “Open it on three,” he said. “One. Two. Three…”</p><p class="">She raised the door, her wand clutched tight in her free hand. She was only aware that she’d held her breath when nothing happened and she began to breathe again. The open trap was a silent, black void.</p><p class="">“<em>Lumos</em>,” Ginny whispered, and her wand cast a beam of bright light that illuminated the long set of stairs that she vaguely remembered climbing half-way down with her friend all those years before.</p><p class="">“I told you not to cast anything!” hissed Harry, but when he tried to glare at her, she stuck out her tongue, and he laughed. “Fine, now just watch my back.”</p><p class="">“My favorite pastime,” Ginny muttered, and the glare he gave this time savored more of exasperation than anger. Shaking his head, holding his wand before him, he stepped slowly sideways onto stairs, which creaked, but otherwise held.</p><p class="">As she followed him onto the stairs, she found another girlhood fantasy reappearing—her accompanying Harry on adventures, as Ron and Hermione had always done. Funny: when it had finally happened, fourth and fifth year, it hadn’t seemed so terribly exciting.</p><p class="">The shadows wavered and stretched in her wandlight as she climbed down behind him, making it difficult to make out the space into which they were descending. The near wall glittered, and looking closely she saw a wall full of stoppered phials and jars that reminded her, once again, of her mother’s root cellar. Most of them seemed empty, or all but—the contents slowly evaporated over the decades. One or two larger ones seemed to have something floating in them, and Ginny looked away, not wanting to see what they contained.</p><p class="">She realized as she looked down that her husband was staring up at her, his lips twisted in a kind of distracted smirk. “What?” she whispered.</p><p class="">“I prefer to watch your front,” he said, smiling.</p><p class="">She rolled her eyes. “That’s because you and your children gave me a fat arse. Git.”</p><p class="">“Never, I like your arse too.” Very pleased with himself, he backed away from the foot of the ladder, giving Ginny room to step down to the stone floor.</p><p class="">It was cold down here—logically enough. Peering into the corners of the room, she stepped closer to him, warming herself against his back.</p><p class="">“There,” he said, and Ginny gasped, craning her neck to look around his shoulder.</p><p class="">Just past the center of the room lay a circle of dusty, melted candles, just as Ginny had known there would be. Just as Luna had said she would arrange them, <em>a circle of flame to protect and contain</em>.</p><p class="">In their midst, kneeling before the shards of what looked like an enormous egg, peering through what seemed to be a magnifying glass, an expression of wonder frozen upon her face, was Luna.</p><p class="">“Bugger,” said Harry, who never swore.</p><p class="">“Bugger,” echoed Ginny.</p><p class="">As naked as Harry and Ginny, Luna was white marble in Ginny’s wandlight, and unmoving, and Ginny thought she had never seen anything so beautiful.</p><p class="">Or so horrible.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Passive Voice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings: Implied sexuality/sexual language. :gasp:</p>
<p>Thanks to aberforths_rug for the beta (the alpha, the omega...).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ginny found her fingers reaching out to Luna’s cheek; Harry’s hand caught her wrist, and she was doubly surprised—she hadn’t been aware of reaching out, and hadn’t expected him to stop her. “What? You can’t imagine—”</p>
<p>“We don’t know what happened. We don’t even know for certain if this is her.” He was frowning. This was his professional face.</p>
<p>“Oh, come on, Harry, of course it’s Luna. She looks—” Ginny stopped and blinked. <em>She looks so, so, <b>so young</b>…. </em>“—just like herself.”</p>
<p>“Still,” Harry said, not releasing her arm.</p>
<p>“Come on, Harry, look at her.” She could feel dual emotions boiling up, mirroring feelings that she’d struggled with nearly three decades before: sorrow and anger. “It’s obvious what happened.”</p>
<p>He sighed. They were probably as expert as anyone alive at identifying the affects of a Basilisk’s stare; between that and the enormous broken shell, it seemed the obvious conclusion. “Yeah,” Harry conceded. “Poor Luna.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” That summer after first year, lying together in Luna’s bed or Ginny’s—not diddling together yet, not old enough for that, but poor Loony… “She always wanted to see a Basilisk.”</p>
<p>Shuddering, Harry released her. “She wasn’t missing anything.”</p>
<p>A thought occurred to Ginny as she looked at her friend’s open, happy, frozen face, and at the blackened lens before it. “Harry?”</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>Stifling again the urge to touch Luna’s cheek, Ginny said, “She… She wasn’t looking directly at it—she was looking through the lens, just like Colin, with the camera, and Ernie, through Nearly Headless Nick…”</p>
<p>“And Hermione through the mirror, yeah.”</p>
<p>There was a dull <em>thump</em>, and the workshop got darker, quieter. Suddenly, Ginny was the one holding Harry’s wrist; they were both staring upwards at the blank ceiling. The trapdoor had sealed itself.</p>
<p>“Must be set to close automatically,” Harry murmured.</p>
<p>Relaxing her grip on her husband’s arm, Ginny nodded. “To keep Luna out when she was little.” It hurt, to think of a charm that Mrs. Lovegood had set all those years ago still safeguarding a child who had since grown up, but never had the chance to be an adult. She raised her wand and whispered, “<em>Luna</em>.” A hairline circle of light appeared in the ceiling; the door had opened again. They weren’t trapped.</p>
<p>Staring up at the tiny crack of illumination, Harry mused, “I suppose that explains why the trap was closed. Though not why it was covered.”</p>
<p>Ginny was about to say that perhaps it hadn’t been covered, perhaps they’d moved the table and rug during one of the annual house cleanings, but realized that if that were so, Harry and the other Aurors would have seen it when they responded to the Lovegood’s on the morning when Luna had first disappeared. “Hmmm.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Hmmmm. <em>Lumos.</em>” Chewing on his lower lip, he turned slowly, taking in the glass-littered shelves, the table, the empty hearth, the floor—all covered with dust, except for the path of footprints that showed where the two of them had entered. “Listen. I think we should leave, until I can get a team back here.”</p>
<p>“I can’t leave her,” Ginny said, recognizing the irrationality of it even as she knew it was true—she couldn’t leave Luna alone in this sad, dark place.</p>
<p>“She’s been alone down here for years, Ginny, it won’t—”</p>
<p>“I can’t.”</p>
<p>Harry peered into her eyes and nodded. “Okay.” Turning back to the frozen figure before them, he said, “Poor Luna.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” The thought that the trapdoor’s closing had banished rushed back. Kneeling down, she gazed at the too-perfect sculpture of her friend. “Harry, do you think she could still be…?”</p>
<p>Harry grunted and knelt beside Ginny, his gaze, like hers, intent on Luna’s frozen expression of wonder. “Dunno. I don’t remember if there’s a maximum span. Don’t even think people who’re Petrified are aware of time—Hermione certainly wasn’t.”</p>
<p>“Hell,” Ginny gasped. She hadn’t even thought about whether Luna might have been aware this whole time. Poor—</p>
<p>“Dim your wand,” Harry whispered. When Ginny cocked her head in question, he extinguished his own.</p>
<p>Still curious, she let the light from her wand die.</p>
<p>Even with the light from the not-quite-sealed trap above, the darkness was as thick and stifling as a Lethifold. Ginny was about to ask what Harry was up to when he murmured “<em>Homenum revelio</em>” and she felt as if something had swooped into the black, enfolding Luna like an even deeper shadow in the shadow.</p>
<p>Harry let out a bark of surprise. “Bloody hell.”</p>
<p>“Does that mean she—?”</p>
<p>“Dunno,” whispered Harry. “But I’d bet so, yeah. Weaker. We wouldn’t have noticed it upstairs. But yeah. I think she’s in there.”</p>
<p>Again emotion flooded up in Ginny: relief, grief, astonishment. She felt Harry’s arms encircle her, felt him trembling.</p>
<p>They knelt there in the near-complete dark, cold and naked—Ginny, at any rate; she could just make out the upper edge of Harry’s t-shirt-clad shoulder. Luna, in whose direction they were both still staring, was utterly invisible.</p>
<p>At length, Harry cleared his throat. “Well, we should get her to healers. The Petrification Recovery team we set up after… And I should get a forensic team out here.”</p>
<p>“I won’t leave her.”</p>
<p>“I know.” His lips pressed against her scalp—just at the spot below her hairline where, before Al was born, a piece of broom handle shattered by a Bludger had scored an exclamation-mark-shaped scar. (<em>Now we match…</em>) “I’ll need to leave. The Floo’s been disconnected for years, and my Patronus would take until tomorrow. You going to be okay?”</p>
<p>She nodded, feeling the roughness of his chin scratching at her forehead. “Let Mum and Dad know we won’t be joining them, could you?”</p>
<p>“Sure.” His hands ran across her bare back.</p>
<p>“Should probably get my clothes,” she mumbled into his neck.</p>
<p>He chuckled. “Probably. I’d rather my Aurors didn’t get to see this much of you.”</p>
<p>“Ashamed?”</p>
<p>“Hardly,” he teased back, as she’d known he would. “Wish we could give Luna the same benefit.”</p>
<p>“Doubt she’ll be terribly fussed.” Ginny hugged her husband and laughed. It echoed dully. Amazing how small a room can feel in the dark.</p>
<p>“No? Probably not.”</p>
<p>“So,” she said, trying to keep the banter light, trying not to think about her friend, turned to stone for two decades, “you finally got to see her breasts. Nice as you thought?”</p>
<p>“Very nice,” Harry conceded, “but still not as nice as yours.”</p>
<p>“Flatterer.”</p>
<p>“Tease.”</p>
<p>“Git.”</p>
<p>“Love.” His lips found her forehead again, and then her nose, her mouth.</p>
<p>Ginny felt desire pierce her—the game she and Harry had played earlier seemed to have opened something in each of them; since Lily had joined her brothers at Hogwarts, they’d fucked a bit more regularly it was true, but never with quite the abandon… They hadn’t fucked like that since they were kids. Why was she suddenly ready for him again? <em>Hungry</em> for him again? “Harry,” she gasped into his lips. Perhaps it was just that they finally had the time. But why here? “Harry?”</p>
<p>“Love?”</p>
<p>Or perhaps it was Luna’s appearance, as if summoned by their need. Ginny fought the urge to deepen the kiss. “What do you reckon happened to her? What was she doing with a Basilisk egg, and wouldn’t Luna have protected herself?”</p>
<p>“Dunno,” Harry grunted, his lips still against hers. Then he chuckled. “P’raps she wanted to lose her virginity to the bloody thing.”</p>
<p>“Not funny, Harry,” she said, but still her fingers searched along the valleys of tight muscle beneath his t-shirt.</p>
<p>The ritual circle. <em>To protect and contain… </em>She pulled back. “Harry. You don’t honestly think—”</p>
<p>“No,” he said, his fingers still tangled in her hair. “Luna was mad, but no one could ever call her stupid. She can’t have known what it was, could she?”</p>
<p>“No.” She pressed against him, and his body was warm, and holding him—kissing him—warmed her from the inside as well as the outside. “Have to ask her,” she gasped. <em>When she wakes.</em></p>
<p>“Think she’d like to see what she missed upstairs?” murmured Harry, his hand cupping her soft bum.</p>
<p>“Git,” she giggled again.</p>
<p>“Love,” he whispered, and for a moment she thought perhaps that he would, that he would take her right there in the dark before sightless Luna, in the middle of her dusty circle of guttered candles. His finger slid along her the crack of her arse and between her thighs, caressing her labia from the back, her labia that were still tender from their earlier play. His cock leapt against her belly and her breath caught. Then, slowly, he detached himself. “Later. Okay?” he asked, voice husky.</p>
<p><em>Where was this coming from? </em>“Okay.”</p>
<p>He let out a breath and muttered, “<em>Lumos</em>.” The light from the tip of his wand seared Ginny’s eyes. Tears made the glass-filled room flare with stars, and one white moon in its center. “I’ll bring your clothes down.”</p>
<p>“Q-quill and paper?” Ginny said.</p>
<p>Harry peered at her, the green of his eyes black and lethal.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Ginny said, chin lifting, “this is a hell of a scoop. Want to get a quick draft off to Aphra before the Monday morning edition goes to bed. Been a while since I made it off the sports page.”</p>
<p>He smiled and nodded, but his eyes were still dark as he stood, then turned and made his way up the stairs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>: :</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once he had brought her the writing implements and her sweaty clothes—the knickers moist still with more than sweat—Harry had kissed her again, told her to be careful, told her he’d be back as soon as he got through to whoever was on weekend duty at the MLES—along with a message to Ginny’s mum and dad that they wouldn’t be having dinner together—and disappeared one last time up the ladder, closing the front door to the Tower with a thud that Ginny felt more than heard.</p>
<p>There’s a different silence to a house that’s got no one else in it. It was a silence that Ginny had treasured as a child, since she almost never got to hear it, and one she had been able to indulge in far too infrequently since James, Al and Lily caterwauled their way into Harry and Ginny’s lives. Caterwauled their way out from between Ginny’s loins and never stopped caterwauling.</p>
<p>It was a silence that suited Luna—oddly, perfectly. Even there in Mrs. Lovegood’s cobwebbed, death-tainted workshop, the toneless tone of the quiet resonated with the peaceful presence of Ginny’s oldest friend.</p>
<p>Tucking her lit wand behind her ear, Ginny laid the parchment on the dusty stones by Luna’s knee. Again she found her fingers moving of their own accord toward the fleshlike marble of Luna’s skin. This time, she stopped them on her own.</p>
<p>Could this be anything but Luna, petrified? Could there be any danger to touching her?</p>
<p>Ginny shivered and shook the impulse from her fingers like drops of water. She picked up her battered old Transcription Quill (no Quick Quotes for her—she wanted her subconscious to stay out of the interview phase), set it on end, took—as always—a slow breath, and began to speak.</p>
<p>“<em>Lovegood Found.</em> No. Scratch that.” The quill neatly struck out its first scribblings. “<em>Long-Lost War Hero Found.</em>” Ginny pursed her lips. Still not good, but it would do for now. “Today’s date. My byline.”</p>
<p>As the quill scratched away, Ginny took another breath and looked at Luna’s face. “New paragraph. <em>Luna Lovegood, veteran of the second war against Voldemort, was found today, petrified in her… </em>Hmmm. Scratch to the last comma. …<em>in her family’s house, The Tower, Ottery St Catchpole, Devon. She had been missing since her nineteenth birthday, exactly twenty years before.</em>” In Ginny’s wandlight, Luna’s face glowed, mouth and huge eyes wide. The darkened lens of the magnifying glass cast a reflected shadow across her throat… “<em>She was discovered in a secret chamber…</em>” The word popped out of Ginny’s mouth before she had a chance to consider them, and left a taste of ash and fear behind. “…<em>in the house’s basement. According to Head Auror Harry Potter, who fought alongside Lovegood…</em>” Who had dreamed, Ginny thought, of fucking Luna, of fucking her tits, of fucking Luna and Ginny both, stroking himself there in his Hogwarts four-poster… “…<em>she seemed to have been Petrified by a Basilisk. Lovegood’s father, Xenophilius, editor of the magazine, </em>The Quibbler, <em>was found dead on the morning of Lovegood’s disappearance. Though it has never been confirmed, the curse that killed him was also consistent with the effects of a Basilisk’s stare. The remains of a creature found that morning just three miles away from the Tower may have been that of a newly hatched Basilisk; the house near which the remains were found had several roosters in residence at the time. Potter considers it possible that the roosters may have destroyed the dark creature.</em></p>
<p>“New paragraph. <em>Though it is unclear whether the younger Lovegood may be revived, signs are hopeful that she is, at the very least, still alive. A team…</em>” Ginny blinked. She remembered Harry talking about the Petrification Revival Team’s formation, but couldn’t for the life of her remember its make-up. “…<em>of specialists is attending Lovegood. A group of Aurors and investigators from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad are examining the secret chamber for clues to the origin of the Basilisk.</em>”</p>
<p>As Ginny talked, the tip of her wand bounced slightly, causing the light and the rainbow on Luna to dance. “<em>Luna Lovegood served as a member and then as a leader of Dumbledore’s Army, the anti-Voldemort student resistance at Hogwarts. She fought with distinction at the Battle of the Hall of Prophecy and at the first and second Battles of Hogwarts. Before the final battle, she was captured by Death Eaters and imprisoned for four months before she was rescued by Harry Potter…</em></p>
<p>“Scratch back to ‘rescued.’” Harry would never let her bring that up, and would only point out… “…<em>by Dobby the Free Elf, who died during the operation, and whose grave is a shrine to Elven Rights supporters to this day. At the time of her disappearance she was working as the assistant editor and chief contributor on </em>The Quibbler. Read back,” she muttered, and the quill read the article back to her in its dry, flat voice; she always knew when she’d written well if she could make the story sound interesting even when read in the quill’s Binns-like drone.</p>
<p>The article was acceptable; Aphra would find stuff to cut at the bottom, she always did, but Ginny had kept it short enough, had dolloped enough exciting stuff in that perhaps the Prophet’s editor-in-chief would leave it alone.</p>
<p>Ginny shook her head, and again the diffracted rainbow moved, this time across the white expanse of Luna’s chest. “Oh, Loony. All of the things I want to say in here, and can’t. <em>Her friends have missed her terribly. </em>Or, <em>she always made me laugh, even if she didn’t always intend to. She had a gorgeous set of yabos that nobody but me ever got to see…</em>” A thought occurred to her and she blew out a breath. “Hell. Dean… And Parvati. What will they think? What will <em>you</em> think?” For a third time, the impulse to touch Luna’s face seized Ginny, and this time nothing was there to stop her. Luna’s skin was smooth and cold like the stone that it was, and Ginny found her other hand joining the first, found herself trying to rub warmth into the warm, chill, happy face.</p>
<p>“Merlin, Loony, are you in there?” Ginny gasped, and felt tears pressing up again. “Can you hear me? We’ve missed you so much. You’ve missed so much.” One of Ginny’s denim-clad legs draped itself across Luna’s lap and the other wrapped behind her bum. Ginny’s arms wound beneath Luna’s, pulling Ginny into a tight embrace of the statue. Kissing the cool cheek, blubbering in earnest now, Ginny sobbed, “Come back, Luna. Please come back.”</p>
<p>There was a flare of light and Ginny squeaked, backing away from Luna, but it was only the trapdoor opening again. Luna remained frozen in rapture. Harry skittered down the stairs. “Told you not to touch her,” he said.</p>
<p>Squinting at him defiantly, for all that the tears were flowing along her upturned chin, she said, “Nothing happened.”</p>
<p>“No,” he sighed. “And I don’t suppose there’d have been any forensic evidence on her body. Still, she could have had some sort of residual magic on her.”</p>
<p>“So you do think it is her?”</p>
<p>He shrugged, then nodded, walking up to Ginny, carefully stepping in the tracks that he’d already made. “Talked to the Petrification team; they were convinced. When I described the remains you’d found at the Burrow, Padma was sure it was consistent with the body of a newly hatched Basilisk; apparently, everyone knows that the crowing of a rooster is deadly to the buggers, but no one is quite sure why, what effect it has. She wants me to pull the old files so she can write it up.”</p>
<p>“Padma’s on the team?” That was a good thing—she’d been the healer who’d taken care of some of Al and James’s more unfortunate mistakes. She was one of the best in Europe at Curse Reversal.</p>
<p>“Yeah, her and Neville. It’s the first time they’ve had a real case to deal with since the team was created, so they’re both incredibly excited, quite aside from the fact that it’s Luna. They’ll be up in just a bit, around the same time as the forensics crowd arrive.” He knelt and picked up the parchment, scanning her article. He was her best and toughest critic; she knew if he thought the article was good, Aphra would approve it. As he read, he nodded, and a knot that she hadn’t been aware of in her stomach began to release. Then his eyebrows shot up.</p>
<p>“What?” asked Ginny.</p>
<p>“Well,” he said, smirking now, “she does have <em>a gorgeous set of yabos</em>, definitely, but I’m not sure you want that bit in, do you?”</p>
<p>Jumping up and grabbing the parchment from her husband, Ginny scanned the article. “Oh, bugger. Forgot to turn the bloody quill off!” She tore the parchment neatly at the bottom of the actual article, balled up the other bit and shoved it into her jeans. She rolled the article neatly and deposited it in a belt loop.</p>
<p>Harry wrapped her in his arms again. “I’ve missed her too, love.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she answered, a small bit of her sense of humor resurfacing, “I could tell up in her room.”</p>
<p>She could feel he fingers tense, could feel that he was about to tickle her mercilessly—it was no fair that Harry had trained himself as a boy not to be ticklish at all—when the sound of multiple feet sounded on the ceiling, and a voice called out, “Hullo? Boss?”</p>
<p>Harry stifled a groan. “Down the trap, Jenkins,” he called up. “Mind the step, and be careful where you walk once you’re down here.”</p>
<p>Ginny smirked at her husband, whose eyes promised sure justice—later. Then, together, their eyes traveled to Luna’s kneeling form, and as a half-dozen lit wands began to descend into the workroom, the white figure began to glow like a full moon on a dark, clear night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>: :</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>As the Aurors began scanning the workroom for whatever arcane clues might still be there, Ginny pinched her husband on the bum and ran up the stairs.</p>
<p>“Where you going?” squawked Harry indignantly.</p>
<p>“To file the copy before the morning edition is set!” Ginny called back, winking at him. From the top of the stairs, the team seemed to be orbiting Luna’s ritual circle like moonlets; Luna, still, bright and white, held the point of focus, the center of gravity.</p>
<p>Luna was not alone.</p>
<p>Harry was with her.</p>
<p>Ginny released her anxiety for now—a mother’s anxiety? a friend’s?—and stepped out into the crisp autumn twilight. Grabbing a tiny apple from one of the trees that grew beside the door to the Tower—hungry still from the cleaning and the sex—she Apparated off to the Burrow to file her story with Aphra Bennet.</p>
<p>The Burrow was empty; Mum and Dad had obviously decided to stay at Percy and Audrey’s, where they’d spent the afternoon taking care of Lucy and Little Molly. The quiet in her childhood home did not somehow seem as reassuring as the dense silence in the Lovegood tower had done.</p>
<p>With a snort at her own skittishness, Ginny grabbed and tossed a small handful of Floo Powder into the hearth, knelt, and called out, “The Prophet!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Run-On</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Ginny came back to the Tower—her story filed, Bennet looking properly excited for once—she bounced through the front door in the mood for anything. A good story after a fantastic fuck and finding a friend she had never thought to see again? Bloody fantastic.</p>
<p>What she did not expect to see floating in the Tower’s kitchen was Luna’s pale, still-stony form. Bright golden in the light of the near-setting sun, Luna shone, her face open, bright and happy as it always was in Ginny’s memory. The sight made Ginny gasp, though she couldn’t have said why. </p>
<p>“Oh!” came an answering pant, and Luna’s inert form suddenly dropped towards the open trap.</p>
<p>“HEY!” called a panicked voice from the trap. “Don’t drop her on me!”</p>
<p>“Sorry, Padma!” called Neville, whose pink face was revealed when Luna’s statue started to fall. “But”—he lifted his wand and his bright, bearded face disappeared again—“Ginny’s here!”</p>
<p>“Oh!” Padma’s face appeared in the trap, just as bright though much darker. “Hey, Ginny!”</p>
<p>“Hey!” Ginny’s eyes flicked back to Luna’s face, her chest—Galleon-vibrant, Galleon-golden. “Harry’s lot done downstairs?”</p>
<p>“Nah,” grunted Neville as they Levitated Luna towards the circular stairs. “But they’re done with Luna here, and we figured we’d get started with her.”</p>
<p>“Are you taking her to St. Mungo’s?”</p>
<p>“Nah,” answered Padma. Her wand was up and her focus on Luna, but she was smiling. “Supposed to be better if they wake up in familiar surroundings. So we thought—”</p>
<p>“Her room.” Ginny felt a thrill of giddy shame at the thought of Luna’s ceiling, of the bed with its unicorns and phoenixes. Would it still reek of her romp with Harry? Would they know? When she woke—<em>Please, Merlin, let her wake!—</em>would Luna know that Ginny had ridden her bound husband sweaty and screaming, all the while pretending herself to be Luna? “Lend you a hand?”</p>
<p>“Ta,” panted Padma. Ginny pulled her wand from behind her ear and helped the Petrification Recovery Team Levitate Luna up the circular stairs to her room.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>: :</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“At least she was inside,” Padma said once they had deposited Luna on the bed. </p>
<p>Ginny blinked. </p>
<p>“Well, most of the worst stories about Petrification recovery are because of the effects of weather. Cracks caused by cold or heat. Water wearing grooves, eroding off whole fingers.” Padma shuddered dramatically. “Nightmare, it could have been. There’s a story about a Muggle woman found Petrified up in the Rocky Mountains in the States. Been out by a lake for forty years or so—how a Basilisk got up there, no one’s ever figured out. She must have seen it reflected in the water. Anyway, they revived her fine, but she had so many bits missing that she bled to death before they could heal her.”</p>
<p>Ginny looked at Luna’s white perfection, there on her own bed. Not an eyelash seemed to be missing. “So… It hasn’t been too long?”</p>
<p>Padma shook her head, and Ginny could have sworn that her nostrils flared.  Ginny could have sworn just as solemnly that a subtle scent of copulation wafted around Luna’s bed. Padma looked up at the five faces on the ceiling and then at Ginny.  “There’ve been cases of Petrification victims who’ve been revived decades, centuries later.”</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>Padma’s nostrils flared again and then she shook her head, as if to clear it. “Yeah. One poor son of a bitch was found just after Grindelwald’s defeat in a cave in Assyria; he’d been there at least three thousand years. He was revived no problem, but the sod only spoke a language that had been dead for millennia.  Died after a couple of years, and there wasn’t anything wrong with him—he was just too lost, living outside of his own time.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” said Ginny, looking at her Petrified friend.</p>
<p>“So, Neville, you’re quiet. Caught your breath yet?” Padma’s tone was suddenly very businesslike. “You ready to bring this girl back?”</p>
<p>“Erm,” muttered Neville. He was looking rather fixedly up at the ceiling.</p>
<p>“There a problem?” Padma seemed genuinely curious. “Come on, Longbottom, we’ve been training for this for five years.”</p>
<p>“Erm,” Neville said again. “Yeah. Erm. Could we…?”</p>
<p>“Could we?” Padma  asked. She peered at Neville and then back up at the ceiling.</p>
<p>“Um. Could we, you know, switch?” Neville kept looking up; his complexion was rather green.</p>
<p>“<em>Switch</em>?” Padma’s eyes flew wide and white.  “You want to do the <em>wandwork</em>? You hate Transfiguration spells! It’s—!”</p>
<p>“Um, yeah, just not…” Neville bit his lip and looked to Ginny for assistance, but she had none to give—she had no idea what had him in such a state. “Um, not the salve. <em>Please.</em>”</p>
<p>“The…?” </p>
<p>“The drills, you see, the victims, they were all…”</p>
<p>Padma too looked over at Ginny, then to Luna, and then back at Neville.  Suddenly, she gave a loud bray of laughter. “Neville! Come on! I know for a fact that you’ve touched a naked girl once or twice!”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well,” mumbled Neville, “They were… I wasn’t, you know, <em>married</em> at the time.”</p>
<p>In spite of herself, in spite of her sympathy for Neville’s abject misery, Ginny joined Padma, laughing for all that she was worth. “I’m pretty sure Hannah’s said you’ve touched at least <em>one</em> naked girl lately!”</p>
<p>Neville’s face went from the color of a sickly toad to the color of a Chinese Fireball. “<em>That’s just the point,</em>” he said, his chin lifted in a challenge. “<em>One</em> girl, and not…”</p>
<p>“Not… Luna?” asked Padma, an elegant mahogany eyebrow arched. </p>
<p>“No! It’s not that—just the opposite! I…” Neville screwed his eyes tight. “Look. I can’t. Hannah… I can’t.”</p>
<p>Perhaps it was her own fantasies bubbling back up, but Ginny had a sudden image of Hannah and Neville playing a game not altogether different from the one that she had played with her own husband earlier in the day. “I can do it.” </p>
<p>Neville and Padma looked at her—Luna too, her expression no more frozen than theirs.</p>
<p>She shrugged. “If it’s just applying some salve—”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Neville, nodding.</p>
<p>“No,” said Padma. “I mean, it is, but it’s in conjunction with the spell that I’m casting, and it’s got to be distributed evenly on every exposed surface.”</p>
<p>Ginny suddenly understood Neville’s discomfort a bit better. “Well,” she said, setting her shoulders, “I’m a mum. It’s not as if I haven’t slathered baby oil all over a baby a thousand times in my life. Sure, I’ll do it, if that would help.”</p>
<p>Neville looked at his team partner, eyebrows high. “Please, Padma. It… I’ve got some more Mandrake, so I could be making up some more of the salve. Just in case.”</p>
<p>Padma rolled her eyes. “Oh, fine. If it’s okay with you, Ginny, it’s fine with me.” </p>
<p>Ginny nodded.</p>
<p>A smile burst across Neville’s face. He ducked down and drew two wide-mouthed glass jars out of his bag, handing them to Ginny.</p>
<p>She took the jars, which were flesh-warm, and placed them on the bed beside Luna’s kneeling form. “So? Padma?”</p>
<p>Looking down at the bedspread, with its gamboling unicorns and Thestrals, Ginny was sure that she could see a spot right by Luna’s knee—right by the jars of salve. Padma seemed to be staring at just the same spot. “Padma? What am I supposed to do? Do I need gloves?”</p>
<p>Padma stared at Ginny, dark eyes wide. Rummaging once again through his bag, Neville chirped, “Got to be bare skin, actually. Some of the spells require it. Don’t worry—the Mandrake’s actually excellent for skin, one of the best emollients known!”</p>
<p>Padma grunted, shook her head, and smiled. “Sorry,” she said. “Woolgathering.” She shook her head again. “So, here’s what you need to do: open the jars. I’m going to start casting a series of spells—non-verbal—and you need to begin spreading the salve; we’ll start at the top and work our way down. The important thing is that you cover every bit, so don’t worry about saving or skimping. Neville’s making more if you need it. And try not to stop—the application needs to be as close to continuous as possible.”</p>
<p>“How do I get more salve then?”</p>
<p>“Alternate hands.” </p>
<p>“Let me help you get those open,” said Neville, who seemed now to be staring fixedly at Ginny’s hip. He flicked his wand and the two jars opened, letting out a pungent, bitter scent; the contents were swirling and opalescent. She dipped in a finger; the stuff was thin but viscous, and warm to the touch.  </p>
<p>She must have wrinkled her nose, because Padma laughed; Neville mumbled, “Yeah, sorry. It’s kind of disgusting stuff. I’d have given it a nicer smell, at least, but I didn’t think anyone but me was going to be working with it.”</p>
<p>“It’s all right, Neville, honestly. I’ve had my hands in much worse.” She looked at Padma. “Ready whenever you are.”  <em>Come back, Loony….</em></p>
<p>“Let’s go,” Padma said, lifting her wand. “I might still have a date waiting for me at the Three Broomsticks if we can do this right.”</p>
<p>“Date?” Neville said. “Who is it this time?”</p>
<p>“This time?” asked Ginny, dipping three fingers into the goopy salve.</p>
<p>“She’s never with the same one twice,” Neville said with a smirk. “Young. Old. Wizards. Witches. Irish. Scots. Turks. Muggles.”</p>
<p>“I like variety,” grumbled Padma. “And I see some of them more than once. Come on. Ginny.”</p>
<p>Ginny lifted the liquid handful to the top of Luna’s head and began to spread it along the impossibly fine marble carving of her friend’s flyaway hair. Padma began a complex series of passes with her wand; her dark eyes were suddenly utterly devoid of their usual humor.</p>
<p>As Ginny continued to spread the salve, she felt its warmth increase; it seemed to glow as Ginny’s fingers rubbed it against Luna’s stony head.</p>
<p><em>What are you thinking, Luna? Can you feel this?</em> Padma and Neville had said that victims of Basilisks didn’t remember time passing but—</p>
<p>“Oh!” gasped Neville. “Look!”</p>
<p>Beneath the pearly sheen of the salve, Luna’s hair, which had been impossibly white just moments before, took on a golden hue. “Good sign,” grunted Padma, continuing to cast the spells.</p>
<p>Gooseflesh sped up Ginny’s arms. Her left hand retrieved another dollop and took over.</p>
<p>They worked on; Padma continuing what Ginny learned soon enough was a sequence of some thirty distinct wand gestures, and Ginny continuing to spread the salve, and with it a miraculous wash of Luna’s own coloration.</p>
<p>No movement, however. No softening. No sign of life, aside from the fresh, pink wash of the skin of Luna’s forehead, her ears.</p>
<p>As Ginny smoothed the warm, sticky stuff across Luna’s eyebrows and was about to continue along her friend’s cheeks—the eyelids were all but invisible, pulled open to their furthest extent—when Neville whispered, “Eyes too. Don’t forget her eyelashes and her eyes.”</p>
<p>It was the first queasy moment: running her fingers over areas that couldn’t normally have taken the touch. And yet Ginny swallowed her unreasoning discomfort and spread the salve across those huge eyeballs; they immediately turned their original misty blue, and Ginny could not help but gasp.</p>
<p>“Keep going,” muttered Padma, and Ginny did, biting her lip to keep the sense of wonder, of panic, of <em>magic</em> from overwhelming her. </p>
<p>Hermione talked about feeling this, even now: occasional astonishment at magic and what it could do. But there was something uncanny about watching the color spread through Luna’s face like one of Dean’s paintings.... When Luna’s lips bloomed pink beneath Ginny’s fingers, the salve giving them both color and the moist, glistening illusion of life, Ginny had to grit her teeth to keep from bursting pointlessly into tears. To lean forward and kiss those lips, as if Luna were Ninianne and Ginny the Summer Sorceror, come to wake her.</p>
<p>As she forced herself to continue along Luna’s chin—she’d never noticed how small and delicate it was—Ginny murmured, “So, this date…”</p>
<p>Padma grunted and started the wand sequence over again.</p>
<p>“…is that what you were woolgathering about?” Ginny ran her left palm along Luna’s throat. A flush revealed itself, frozen as it had traveled up Luna’s neck.</p>
<p>“Wool…?” Padma’s wand continued through its dance. She frowned, then snorted. “Oh. No. No, I was… I was thinking about Parvati.”</p>
<p>“About…?” Ginny slathered the salve over an angular shoulder and began to work her way down the arm that was holding the magnifying glass. <em>Parvati. Dean. All those years… Damn.</em> “Oh.”</p>
<p>“Don’t think about it, Ginny.” Padma’s forehead creased as she focused once again on the spells that she was casting. “They’ll be fine. It’s just… She gets kind of insecure.”</p>
<p>“Because of Luna?” asked Neville, who was grinding up something pink in a mortar. “But… I mean, I know Dean was broken up—”</p>
<p><em>For years</em>, Ginny thought.</p>
<p>“—but they’ve been married now forever!”</p>
<p>“And that’s supposed to mean she won’t get all bent because her husband’s Great Lost Love suddenly returns from the dead?” Padma grumbed. </p>
<p>“Well, I mean,” answered Neville.</p>
<p>Ginny sighed as she worked her way back across Luna’s collar bone and down the other arm. “Fat lot you know. You and Hannah have been together even longer than Dean and Parvati; don’t you ever get worried when she’s come back from a night at the Leaky Cauldron and tells you one of her old boyfriends—Ernie, say, or Roger Davies, the pretty twit—was at the pub?”</p>
<p>“No,” Neville answered. No heat, no challenge, just... no. “So you’re worried Dean is going to throw Parvati over? He’d never—”</p>
<p>“Of course he wouldn’t,” said a warm, smooth voice that caused Ginny’s nerves to sing. “We’re done down below. I’ve sent the rest of the team home—Jenkins is looking forward to seeing you later, Padma.”</p>
<p>“Hey, Harry. Good on Jenkins—he’ll have to wait,” answered Padma, her forehead bright in the refracted twilight. “And Dean, no, he wouldn’t. But Parvati...”</p>
<p>“...has issues,” finished Neville, looking down at his mortar and pestle.</p>
<p>Padma frowned, biting her lip.</p>
<p>“Don’t we all?” Ginny said.</p>
<p>Padma flashed something like a smile. “Not <em>you </em>two. Got all of the issues out of the way long ago.”</p>
<p>Harry chuckled. “I suppose. Funny how watching each other nearly die puts everything else in perspective.” Ginny could feel his gaze on her as she smoothed the salve along one sunken, white armpit.</p>
<p>“I suppose that’s true,” said Neville, head tilted. “I mean, Hannah watched me get my fifteen minutes under the hero hat, and I watched her and Seamus nearly get stomped by a giant. I suppose that could be why we’ve never fought much.”</p>
<p>“Nah,” said Padma, her mouth stretched in a full grin, for all that the effort of continuing the spells shown on her face. “It’s because the two of you are too bloody <em>nice</em>.”</p>
<p>“You wouldn’t say that,” answered Neville, “if you saw what she and I got up to when she got in last—”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” laughed Harry, “that’s okay. We’ll just have to imagine it. I’m sure it was very...” He grinned and caught Ginny’s eye; she could see that like her he was thinking of what they had done on Luna’s bed just hours before. “So, Neville, James killed any plants yet this year?”</p>
<p>Neville gave the fond, bland smile that she thought of as his professor face. “No, no, he’s doing...Well, not exactly well, but he hasn’t had any disaster’s yet. And Lily is proving to be quite as green a thumb as Albus.”</p>
<p>Ginny felt a wash of surprise and shame wash through her; she hadn’t even thought to as after their children.</p>
<p>“Well, it’s good that the younger two take after their mother when it comes to plants,” Harry said with a cheeky grin. “If they were all like James, you’d have empty... <em>Sweet Merlin!</em>”</p>
<p>Ginny looked up. Her husband and Neville both were staring at her, their jaws as open as the flesh attaching them allowed. She realized that her fingers had just swept across Luna’s right breast, leaving the nipple a berry red very much as bright as Ginny remembered it getting at the peak of Luna’s excitement. Ginny began to withdraw her hand—</p>
<p>“Don’t stop!” Padma barked, and Ginny continued spreading the salve around the inside of Luna’s breast. “Don’t want to leave her hanging after all this time, now do we?”</p>
<p>“No,” said Ginny, her eyes locking on Harry’s. “Told you they were nice, didn’t I? Like what you see?”</p>
<p>Neville’s eyes snapped back down to his work. Harry’s remained on Ginny’s hand, and Luna’s breast, which was turning the same deep pink as the rest of her chest.</p>
<p>Ginny brought up a fresh handful of the salve. “Too bad Luna isn’t aware that I’m doing this. She’d enjoy it, I’m sure.” Her eyes still locked on Harry, Ginny spread the new handful around Luna’s left breast, tweaking the bright nipple for good measure.</p>
<p>Harry’s eyes snapped at last up to hers. He smiled.</p>
<p>“Bloody hell,” grunted Padma. “Can’t say that I wouldn’t enjoy it myself. Share her with me, will you, Harry?”</p>
<p>“Padma!” Ginny laughed, the spell broken. Her hand passed along the marble ribs beneath Luna’s outstretched marble arm.</p>
<p>“Well, can’t blame me, can you? What do say, Harry? Can Ginny slather some of that stuff all over me?” Though Padma’s tone was flirtatious, her face had reverted to a mask of focused relaxation.</p>
<p>Ginny, who had never thought overmuch about touching other women’s breasts suddenly found herself thinking about how Padma’s dark flesh would look beneath her pale fingers. <em>Must be the Mandrake. And the fact that I’m sitting here playing with Luna’s yabos on the bed where I played at being Luna just a few hours ago. </em></p>
<p>Harry laughed quietly. “That’s not how our marriage works, Padma. You’ll have to ask Ginny yourself. I wouldn’t presume to tell her what to do.”</p>
<p>“Sorry, Padma,” Ginny said, watching the color wash along the small of Luna’s back. <em>Wonder if I blush there?</em> “Think my hands are going to be done slathering once this one’s done. Besides, I wouldn’t want to disappoint Jenkins; he’s very sweet.”</p>
<p>“Sod Jenkins,” Padma said with a smirk. Continuing to cast the spells, she flicked her gaze from Ginny to Harry and back. “Though I wouldn’t want to sow discord among Harry’s troops. And mind, that young man looks very nice in a uniform.”</p>
<p>A splash of freckles that Ginny had quite forgot about appeared just below Luna’s navel.</p>
<p>“Ta, very much,” said Harry.</p>
<p>“Not that you and your good lady here don’t look yummy in your cleaning duds.”</p>
<p>Neville cleared his throat. “Um. Could you stop flirting with them, Padma? You’re making my head spin.”</p>
<p>“Fair enough. Can’t help myself, I’m afraid. Parvati’s theory is that I flirt with everything that moves for the same reason that she's such a jealous Nelly.” Padma’s brow twisted; she started the spell sequence from the beginning once again. Ginny felt her fingers flow over Luna’s fluted hip. </p>
<p>Harry stood, leaning against the doorway, one eyebrow showing over his glasses.</p>
<p>“Their dad,” said Neville.</p>
<p>Padma’s wand continued its dance. “Yup.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Mr. Patil. Who turned Mrs. Patil in to the Muggle-born Registration Committee during the war. “Oh, Padma...”</p>
<p>“Personally,” Padma said, “I think that theory’s pure rubbish. I just enjoy flirting, and she’s just a jealous bint. Nice watching you do her backside too, Ginny, I must say.”</p>
<p>Neville coughed in something like agreement, while Harry just smiled.</p>
<p>“Ta, very much,” Ginny said, working her way down one white thigh. “Oi, Neville, James sounds quite smitten with the new Magical Creatures teacher, Teddy’s friend.”</p>
<p>Again Neville favored them with his professor smile. “As are most of the male students. She’s certainly a lot more attractive than Hagrid.”</p>
<p>“Not saying much, that,” said Padma. </p>
<p>Harry chuckled. “Can’t believe he finally caved and moved off to France. Thought he’d never leave his menagerie behind.”</p>
<p>“Olympe must have made it worth his while,” said Ginny, winking at her husband.</p>
<p>Laughing, Neville lifted another jar of salve onto the bed; a good thing, since the second jar was nearly depleted. “Well, she is quite lovely, but... How to put this. Young as she is, I’m not sure that the boys’ affections are of particular concern to her.”</p>
<p>“Are you saying she plays for the other side,” asked Padma, switching wand hands and wiping her brow, “or does she like animals?”</p>
<p>“She’s certainly fond of them, but the former, I think.” </p>
<p>“Which is which?” asked Harry. “Latter and former. I can never remember.”</p>
<p>Luna’s flush ran all of the way down her thighs. <em>Remarkable. </em>“Former is first. Latter is later.”</p>
<p>Harry smiled, watching Ginny dab Luna’s knees. “It’s a wonderful thing having a writer for a wife.”</p>
<p>Ginny smiled back. “I live to clear up your grammatical questions.”</p>
<p>“Now the flirting is getting to <em>me</em>,” grumbled Padma. “Come on, boys, time for you to earn your keep. We need you to tip Luna on her back so that Ginny can get the bottoms of her legs and such.” When Neville started to quail, she added, “Oh, come on, Longbottom. Get a grip. You’ll be holding her by her arm. I’m sure Hannah won’t mind.”</p>
<p>As the two men lifted Luna’s form, now fully lifelike, but still lifeless, to rest on her back, looking at the ceiling, Ginny continued working up her shins. Neville joined Luna in staring straight up. <em>How nice that she’ll wake looking up at her painting</em>, thought Ginny. “Once the salve’s applied,” she asked, “how long will it take for her to revive?”</p>
<p>“Oh, if you’ve covered everything, it should be pretty quick,” answered Padma. “And if you’ve missed any spots, you just have to keep working till you’ve got them all.”</p>
<p>Ginny nodded. Luna had painted her toes canary yellow. <em>What a funny thing... </em>Smoothing the salve along the bottom’s of her friend’s feet, Ginny slowed. There was only a little left...</p>
<p>“Come on, Ginny,” Padma urged, her voice strained. “Just the last bit and we’re done.”</p>
<p><em>Just like changing Lily’s nappies. Only Lily was my daughter, and she wasn’t nineteen at the time. And I didn’t have two men and a bisexual woman watching. </em>Releasing the breath she’d been holding, Ginny spread the salve through the marble curls, which turned flaxen as her fingers passed. Pressing on, not giving herself time to think about it any more (<em>Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve)</em> she ran her fingers along Luna’s floral, open labia. Ginny couldn’t look; her eyes found Harry’s instead—Harry’s eyes, which penetrated...</p>
<p>Beneath Ginny’s fingertips, what had been cold stone suddenly became soft and moist and warm.</p>
<p>And a whispy voice that Ginny had never thought to hear again sighed, “...ilisk! Oh! That feels very nice, Ginny. What a lovely birthday present! But what are we doing in my room? Why do I smell semen? And Ginny? When did your breasts grow?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Sentence Fragment</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings: Mild sexual references; a bit of language. Minor flangst. (And I know that those of you who've read my fic before are shocked by that.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The hours after Luna’s recovery went by in a blur.<br/>
<br/>
Neville wrapped a conjured blanket around her.<br/>
<br/>
Padma performed a battery of tests—some that Ginny recognized, many that she didn’t—muttering incantations, the wand that she ran up Luna’s front and back glowing green, then blue, then purple.<br/>
Ginny sat, holding Luna’s smooth, thin, warm hand, feeling both young and old, joyous and sad.<br/>
When they told Luna what had happened to her—that she had been Petrified for twenty years to the day, that Ginny had had three children, which was why her breasts had grown, and that what Luna was smelling wasn’t semen (at least, Ginny thought, not mostly) but the Mandrake salve that had released her—she blinked and said, “Oh.” Aside from that, she seemed perfectly… herself.<br/>
<br/>
Harry interrogated Luna gently but persistently, asking and reasking questions about the night before the attack—the night of Luna’s birthday—and then about the morning that she had been Petrified. Very little of the information that Luna was able to give struck Ginny as at all useful: she had spent a quiet evening with her father on the night of her birthday, since a dinner with Dean and a party in a private room at the Leaky Cauldron had been planned for the following night. “Tonight,” Luna kept saying.<br/>
<br/>
Luna answered on, blithe and unfussed, more interested, it seemed, in Ginny’s quill than in anything else. The quill took down Luna’s recollections, which were, of course, eerily fresh.<br/>
<br/>
The egg had been a surprise; it had appeared on the Lovegoods’ doorstep the next morning. “This morning,” Luna kept saying. “Daddy thought it was a Snorkack egg, and I thought so too at first; I carried it down to the basement, to show to Dean later. I have it all set up for when he comes over... had it... all set up for when he was going to come over.” Luna’s eyebrows scrunched together, her smooth forehead wrinkling. “Where is Dean?”<br/>
<br/>
She asked this of Harry, who, poor boy, was absolutely unprepared for the question. Neville too stood, spluttering. Padma darkened—a flush of anxiety or anger, Ginny thought, not of embarrassment—and looked to Ginny, who took a deep breath, and tried to think how to say what needed to be said. “Dean... He’s...”<br/>
<br/>
“Only,” Luna mused, “Daddy was in the Tower, and he was quite old in any case, and so he must be dead, or he would be here or one of you would have said something. Did Dean die as well?”<br/>
<br/>
“No,” Ginny said, her voice thick; it was easy to remember how amusing Luna’s random insights could be, but easy to forget how disconcerting they were. “No, Luna, Dean is still fine. He—”<br/>
<br/>
“He’s better than fine,” interjected Padma. “He’s married. To Parvati.”<br/>
<br/>
Luna’s gaze floated from Padma to Ginny to Harry to Neville, and back to Ginny again. “Married?”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny nodded.<br/>
<br/>
“To Parvati?”<br/>
<br/>
“But...” Her chin quivered. “He is... He... sent me an owl last night...” Luna’s smooth, calm face seemed to implode.<br/>
<br/>
Not knowing what else to do, Ginny gathered her old friend in her arms.<br/>
<br/>
Harry spoke up. “He held on for the longest of us all, Luna, waiting for you to show up, to come back. You disappearing, he was an absolute wreck.” This wasn’t strictly true, of course—Dean had stopped coming three years before, and Parvati had stopped two years before that. Still, it didn’t seem worth pointing that out in the moment.<br/>
<br/>
Harry pulled a pleading expression, first to Ginny, who couldn’t think of a thing to say, and then to Padma, who sighed and, as if she’d have rather have her teeth pulled than speak, said, “Yeah. He was a total bloody mess. For more than ten years. If he hadn’t been able to convince himself you were dead, he’d probably have died himself.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh,” Luna said.<br/>
<br/>
“He’ll be really glad you’re back,” said Neville, sounding far less than certain.<br/>
<br/>
Luna burrowed into Ginny’s embrace. “I think not. It is not terribly pleasant to find that things that you believed yesterday are no longer true today.”<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
: :<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
The rest of Luna’s debriefing was muted and quick. Padma pronounced Luna totally fit; when Ginny asked if she should go to Saint Mungo’s, Padma said that it wasn’t necessary, and might not be practical, since there was an unusually virulent outbreak of Dragon Pox filling every available bed; Luna should probably have some company, but she would be fine, either staying in the Tower, or with someone else. She then said that if she moved fast, she should be able to make her date with Jenkins, gathered up her kit, congratulated Luna, said goodbye and fairly sprinted down the stairs.<br/>
<br/>
Ginny would have bet rather heavily that—whether she ended up on that date with one of Harry’s Aurors or not—Padma was first going to break the news of Luna’s return to her sister and to Dean. Dean, who, Ginny knew, would be shattered to find that Luna had lived after all, and that she had been so near by, for all of those years.<br/>
<br/>
Neville stood, a hand reaching out to Luna, but not quite touching her. “Her bedside manner’s never been her strongest point,” he joked, rather ineffectively. “Er, I’d love to have you back, but Hannah and I, we’re in professor’s rooms, tiny, really, and I’m on rounds tonight....”<br/>
<br/>
“It’s all right,” Ginny said. “She can stay with us. Right, Harry?”<br/>
<br/>
Her husband nodded, and walked over to Neville, patting him on the shoulder in that bizarrely male not-touching form of embrace. “Or we can stay with her here. Either way. Luna? That okay?”<br/>
<br/>
“Hmm?” Luna blinked at them. “Oh, yes. That would be nice.” Then she turned in Ginny’s arms and peered upward toward the painting on her ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s wonderful to have you back, Luna,” said Neville, and now he did in fact touch Luna, stroking her fly-away hair.<br/>
<br/>
“Hmm,” said Luna, still looking up.<br/>
<br/>
“Well,” Neville said, withdrawing his fingers, “I’ve got to get back up to Hogwarts. Hannah will be so excited, and Professor Flitwick! And... may I tell the children?”<br/>
<br/>
At first, Ginny thought Neville meant all of the students, which seemed a rather odd thing to ask about; Harry, however, understood. “Please,” he said. “I know James and Al will be really glad to hear the news, but Lily will be beside herself.”<br/>
<br/>
Grinning, Neville nodded, picked up his bag, said goodye and made his way down the stairs.<br/>
<br/>
Ginny pulled Luna even closer, as if the feeling of her friend’s breathing through the thin blanket might turn out to be an illusion. Luna did not seem to mind; she simply lay, her head on Ginny’s shoulder, looking up.<br/>
Harry sat at the foot of the bed. Slowly, he reached out, as if hoping not to startle them, and placed one long-fingered hand on either woman’s foot.<br/>
<br/>
After a moment, Luna said, “Lily? That was your mother’s name, wasn’t it, Harry?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s our youngest. Our daughter.”<br/>
<br/>
“It is a rather nice name. Lily”<br/>
<br/>
“Lily,” whispered Ginny into Luna’s hair. “Lily Luna.”<br/>
<br/>
Luna slowly sat up and looked at Ginny, a look of shocked pleasure washing across her face that Ginny had only ever seen twice: once after Ginny had shown Luna how to use her wand to bring herself off for the first time, and next on the St Valentine’s Day before her disappearance when a trio of owls had delivered a hand-painted card the size of a Muggle traffic sign to Luna that had, for the first time, proclaimed in black and white his love for her. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, Ginny. Oh! Oh, Harry!” She threw her arms around their necks, the blanket falling to the bed and dissipating (Neville’s conjurations having always been less than stellar) and pulled them both to her, now. “Thank you,” she said, crying. “It is nice to know that someone truly did miss me... That you weren’t just being nice.”<br/>
<br/>
“Of course we missed you!” Ginny exclaimed.<br/>
<br/>
Harry threw his arms around them both. “We <em>all</em> did, Luna. Really.”<br/>
<br/>
As the hug stretched on, Ginny felt as unabashed in her joy as she had in years—since Lily’s birth, perhaps, which had been such a wonderful surprise, even after Victoire and Rosie gave the lie to the fear that Ginny herself would not only be the first female Weasley in generations, but the last. She embraced and was embraced, and watched sea-changes of emotion flow across Harry’s habitually stoic face, felt Luna’s tears against her own cheek.<br/>
<br/>
It was only after they had stayed there for some time that some silly, adolescent part of Ginny’s brain noticed the bitter odor of the salve in Luna’s hair, which really did smell like cum, and the subtle scent of sex wafting from her own body and Harry’s—and perhaps the bed itself—and she thought of the fact that they were there, where hours ago they had fucked each other silly, each thinking of a naked Luna; and now there they were, hugging a naked Luna.<br/>
<br/>
It seemed surreal.<br/>
<br/>
More than surreal. It seemed magical.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Dangling Modifier</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="">Harry was the first to break the embrace; like Neville, he was looking down as he stood, not at Ginny and unclothed Luna on the bed.</p>
<p class=""><em>Is he hard?</em> Ginny found herself wondering, and felt herself starting to blush at the thought. <em>Silly...</em></p>
<p class="">“So,” he said, using the brisk, cheerful voice he often took with his Aurors and the kids, “Luna: would you like to stay with us, or here?”</p>
<p class="">“Here, please,” Luna answered, her head still tucked against Ginny’s shoulder. “I... don’t think I’m ready to leave yet. To see how things have changed.”</p>
<p class="">Now Harry looked up, a frown of compassion on his face. “Right. So, I’ll bring back some food—and what else, Ginny?”</p>
<p class="">“Food?” asked Luna, as if she had never heard of the stuff.</p>
<p class="">“Yes,” Ginny answered, stroking her friend’s morning-wild hair. “We cleared out the pantry.” That had been a painful decision, pushed through by Ginny’s mum.“A while ago.”</p>
<p class="">“Ah,” said Luna.</p>
<p class="">Ginny pulled her close again and spoke to her husband through a face-full of blonde.“If you could bring me something to sleep in.”</p>
<p class="">Harry nodded. “Okay.”</p>
<p class="">“And a couple of... Let me write you a list.” One arm still around her friend, Ginny searched through her jeans’ pockets, dumping out some knuts, a cleaning rag and one scrap of parchment that had already been written on before finding a receipt she could use. She summoned her quill and wrote a quick list of necessaries—toiletries, as well as some things she thought might be helpful for Luna. They’d never kept any Dreamless Sleep with the kids around, but had kept doses of EZ-Kip Insta-Nap ever since the stretch when Lily’s night terrors had woken the whole family on a nightly basis years before; Lily had almost always slept right through, but getting Al and James back to sleep had been a regular ordeal. She held the list out to her husband, who was smiling at her. “There.”</p>
<p class="">“Thanks. I’ll be right back,” he said, and left.</p>
<p class="">Luna’s arms pulled Ginny close again. “You’re really not leaving?”</p>
<p class="">“Of course not,” Ginny answered, and kissed Luna on the top of her living, warm, semen-scented head. It was... Ginny couldn’t really have put words to how holding Luna made her feel.</p>
<p class="">
  <em>Whole. Alive.</em>
</p>
<p class="">Ginny smiled, feeling the steady expansion and contraction of Luna’s chest within the craddle of her arms. Apparently ten years as a journalist had left her incapable of <em>not</em> looking for the right word, even when there patently wasn’t one.</p>
<p class="">“I remember,” said Luna, “when Penelope Clearwater was released by Madam Pomfrey after she was revived our first year, everyone kept asking her what it had <em>felt like</em>, to be Petrified for all of those months; we were all so curious, you see.”</p>
<p class="">“I can imagine.” A tower full of Ravenclaws confronted with a mystery—of course that’s what they’d wanted to know. Ginny batted aside an old, familiar flutter of guilt at being the person…</p>
<p class="">“Hmm. And what she kept saying was that it hadn’t felt like anything at all—that she’d been in one place, talking with Hermione about Hermione’s research, peering through that mirror together... and the next moment, she’d been staring up at Madam Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing, listening to the spring birds singing.” Luna shifted her head beneath Ginny’s chin and sighed. “I can see what she meant. For me, nothing has really changed: my body still thinks that it is the morning of my nineteenth birthday, not the evening of my thirty-ninth. I am still hungry. Though I am rather tired, which I don’t remember being before.” She shifted, without breaking Ginny’s embrace, and peered toward the high window on the west-facing side of her room, opposite the bed; night had truly fallen. “At least,” she said, “it is still autumn. It should have been even more confuffling to hear nightingales singing. Not that I amn’t rather confuffled enough as it is.”</p>
<p class="">“I bet,” whispered Ginny, rubbing Luna’s back. Luna shivered. “Shall we get you some clothes?”</p>
<p class="">“Clothes?” asked Luna, leaning back and gazing that disconcerting gaze at Ginny as if Ginny were herself mad. Then she looked down. “Oh. I am naked.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny laughed, in spite of herself. “Magnificently.”</p>
<p class="">“Thank you. Did it make Harry uncomfortable, do you think?”</p>
<p class="">“I don’t think <em>uncomfortable </em>is quite the word I’d use, honestly.” The image of his passion-dark face as he’d tried to thrust up into her that afternoon, admitting that he’d wanked to thoughts of Luna, of her breasts, of Luna and Ginny... “No, not exactly uncomfortable. Neville, yeah. But Harry... no.”</p>
<p class="">“Oh. Neville. Yes. He was always rather modest. I asked him to show me his penis once fifth year, just because I wanted to see one, you know, that didn’t belong to a Centaur, or a unicorn, or a Hippogriff. He wasn’t able to speak to me for weeks after that.”</p>
<p class="">Again, Ginny laughed. “Good thing you didn’t ask Harry back then. He’d have died at that age.” Squeezing Luna, she stepped off the bed and walked towards the clothes cupboard. “We’ve kept all of your clothes here. Would you like a dressing gown, or some robes?”</p>
<p class="">“Hmm?” Luna was playing with the pile of detritus from Ginny’s pocket. She looked up, startled.“Oh. Clothes. Yes. There should some pyjamas on the second shelf.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny opened the cupboard; she’d gone through and renewed the Anti-dust charms earlier that day. A daisy-yellow set of pyjamas lay neatly folded on the top of a pile; Ginny was sure that her mother or Hermione must have tidied up the clothes, since she remembered Luna’s style of putting things away being far less precise. She took the clothes and brought them back to her friend. “Here you go.”</p>
<p class="">Luna took the pyjamas and pulled them on, all the while staring out the dark window. “I wonder,” she mused, “am I not quite twenty, or not quite forty?”</p>
<p class="">“A bit of both, I suppose. Which do you feel?”</p>
<p class="">Pale blue eyes flew wide—wider than usual—and focused more or less entirely on Ginny. “I don’t know.” Luna stood and walked toward the window.</p>
<p class="">“Your pyjamas...” gasped Ginny. Though carefully cared for and locked away from the ravages of light and the elements, the color had faded from the part of the cloth that had been exposed to the air; the pyjamas had a mad, particolored, harlequin look to them—bright yellow on the arms and legs, with patches of buttercream on the breast and bum.</p>
<p class="">“Dean gave them to me,” sighed Luna. “For my last birthday.” She stroked the cloth absentmindedly with Ginny’s scrap of parchment. “I was looking forward to having him take them off of me tonight.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny walked up behind her friend, who stood a good three or four inches taller, even now. She wrapped her arms around Luna’s waist and hugged her from behind.</p>
<p class="">“It seems odd to me,” said Luna, “that I should be more upset by the fact that Dean will not be coming to fuck me—that he is going to be with his wife—than I am by the thought that my father is dead. Isn’t that rather odd?”</p>
<p class="">“Not particularly.” Ginny found herself swaying slightly, rocking Luna—whether for her own comfort or for Luna’s she couldn’t have said. “It’s easier to react to what’s more concrete.”</p>
<p class="">“Concrete. Yes.” Luna swayed with Ginny and let her head loll from side to side. “Though I suppose I shall grieve them both soon enough.”</p>
<p class="">“I suppose,” said Ginny. “But don’t grieve too much just now, Luna. It really is quite wonderful that you are back with us.”</p>
<p class="">Luna turned in Ginny’s arms, smiling her misty smile, and kissed Ginny’s nose. “Yes. I suppose it is.”</p>
<p class=""> </p>
<p class="">: :</p>
<p class=""> </p>
<p class="">Harry called up from the kitchen as he returned with the supplies from home and a magnificent feast from their favorite Punjabi take-away spot just off of Grimmauld Place. As the rich scent wafted up the stairs, the color returned to Luna’s face. “Ooo! That smells wonderful! Almost as good as Plimpy Soup, but it’s too early in the season for that, of course.” She all but Levitated down the stairs.</p>
<p class="">“Of course.” Ginny trotted behind her friend, remembering just how revolting the soup was—remembering too just how rhapsodically Luna and her father would go on about the watery stuff, which had been a specialty of Luna’s mum.</p>
<p class="">But it was nice to see Luna’s face light up again, to see her smile.</p>
<p class="">As they ate, and the curry’s heat flowed through them, Luna asked about their children, about their lives. “Are you an Auror too, Ginny?”</p>
<p class="">“No!” Ginny coughed in surprise.</p>
<p class="">“Why do you say it that way?” Luna asked. “I think you would make a wonderful Auror, don’t you agree, Harry?”</p>
<p class="">“Yup,” agreed Harry, gulping at the heat of the <em>bhaji </em>that he’d just swallowed whole—he had a weakness for the onion fritters that Ginny had always found amusing.</p>
<p class="">Luna nodded, looking mildly pleased that she had been right, as always.</p>
<p class="">“No,” Ginny said, “I’m actually...” She found herself feeling shy, and only worked out why after a moment. “I’m a journalist. Just as you’ve always wanted to be. That’s why I was taking notes when Padma and Harry were interviewing you—for me as much as for Harry. I’m going to write a story for <em>The Prophet.</em>”</p>
<p class="">“Oh!” Luna eyes opened to a rather shocking width. “May I help you?”</p>
<p class="">“Of course.” It seemed so right: who better to write the story of Luna’s resurrection?</p>
<p class="">Luna looked from Ginny to Harry and back again. “I would never have expected you to do something so boring!”</p>
<p class="">“Writing isn’t <em>boring</em>!”</p>
<p class="">“Well, I suppose not, but certainly it isn’t terribly active. I can’t imagine doing something that wasn’t about moving about.”</p>
<p class="">“I’m not always moving about!”</p>
<p class="">Harry grinned. “Yes, you are.”</p>
<p class="">Again, Luna nodded. “Even when she’s sleeping, she’s moving. Isn’t that right, Harry?”</p>
<p class="">The grin widened, and he popped another <em>bhaji </em>into his mouth. “Yup.”</p>
<p class="">“I do not!” Ginny felt silly fighting the two of them—she felt very much very much ten years old again, with Ron and the twins ganging up to tease her. <em>Unfair!</em></p>
<p class="">“Oh, but you do,” Luna said. “Your feet move all night as if you were running, except when you are—”</p>
<p class="">“Yup. She never stops.” Harry jumped in, spraying onion fritter onto the table, clearly trying to derail Luna; he should have known better.</p>
<p class="">“—stroking yourself.”</p>
<p class="">Harry grimaced.</p>
<p class="">Ginny stared at the two of them. “Stroking myself?”</p>
<p class="">“Yes. You stroke your vulva quite often, and then you stop moving about. Does she still do that, Harry?”</p>
<p class="">“Yup.” He wasn’t looking up.</p>
<p class="">“How nice. And sometimes you pinch your—”</p>
<p class="">Mortified as she was, Ginny looked up to see how Harry had cut Luna off this time—but he hadn’t. Luna was fishing in the breast pocket of her pyjamas; she seemed to have been surprised to find something there—the scrap of parchment. Her nipples were poking through the thin cotton, leaving Harry utterly speechless.</p>
<p class="">“If I move around so much,” she said, “and... yeah, why don’t you say anything?”</p>
<p class="">“Because,” Harry said, tearing his eyes away from Luna’s chest and grimacing as he did when he was trying to fight down a blush, “it’s sweet.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny started to reach out for his hand when Luna asked suddenly, “What are <em>yabbos</em>?”</p>
<p class="">Ginny’s eyes and Harry’s both snapped back to Luna, who was staring at the piece of parchment. The piece of parchment that Ginny had torn off after the dictation quill had kept taking down Ginny’s words even though she hadn’t meant it to. “Breasts. <em>Yabbos</em> is a slang term for breasts.” Ginny stared down at her dinner, poking at a piece of <em>naan</em> with her fork. <em>I can’t believe I let </em>another<em> person find that! I should have just burned the bloody thing.</em></p>
<p class="">“Oh.” Luna frowned down at the scrap and then at Ginny.</p>
<p class="">“I... I tore that bit from the bottom of an article I was putting together about finding you,” muttered Ginny. “I forgot....”</p>
<p class="">“Oh,” repeated Luna, looking down at the parchment again. “Do you really think that my... yabbos are <em>gorgeous</em>?”</p>
<p class="">“Of course they are, Luna,” huffed Ginny. “So is the rest of you! <em>Right, Harry?</em>”</p>
<p class="">“Right.” Her husband looked ready to crawl under the table.</p>
<p class="">“Oh,” said Luna. “That’s very nice of both of you to say.” She picked up some <em>tikke masala </em>with her fingers, watching the sauce as it flowed from the chicken onto her skin.</p>
<p class="">Ginny looked at Harry, but he shook his head; most likely he was right—nothing that either of them said at this point would help, but more to the point, the whole conversation had got just about to the limit of weird that either of them could handle just now. It was amazing how quickly Luna managed to get you to that awkward place. “You’re welcome,” Ginny said, even as she thought, <em>It’s true. </em>“And I did play Quidditch, by the way, with the Harpies, before the babies made that seem like much less fun. So I <em>did</em> move around a bit more—for a while, at least.”</p>
<p class="">“Oh, good. That sounds much more like you.”</p>
<p class=""> </p>
<p class="">: :</p>
<p class=""> </p>
<p class="">The rest of the meal passed much more quietly. Luna seemed thoughtful. Harry had his stoic, mortified look on.</p>
<p class="">And Ginny found herself wondering why she herself was acting so oddly. So giddy. So... So young. That was it: she was acting as if she had been petrified at the same time as Luna, and they had both been revived together and Ginny hadn’t actually spent the last twenty years growing up. Settling down. Forgetting. It made sense. But it was utterly ridiculous.</p>
<p class="">As they clean up after the meal, Harry gently began to arrange how the night and the next few days would work. “Would you like to sleep in your bed,” he asked, “ or upstairs?”</p>
<p class="">Luna paused from licking muggle ice cream from her fingers. “My own room, please. I am rather fond of it.”</p>
<p class="">“I can understand that,” said Harry. “May we sleep in your parents’ room?”</p>
<p class="">“Of course.”</p>
<p class="">“Good. Ginny,” continued Harry, “I will need to go in tomorrow. There are details of the investigation that I need to be at the Ministry to manage. Can you work from here for the next day or two?”</p>
<p class="">“That’d be perfect,” Ginny answered. “It’ll be easier to get the article done here—and Luna can help me, won’t you, Luna-luv?”</p>
<p class="">“I would love to.”</p>
<p class="">Harry ran a hand through his unruly mop. “Great. And I’ll send a pair of Aurors out to strengthen all of the wards and keep unwelcome guests out.”</p>
<p class="">Luna paled. “Unwelcome guests?”</p>
<p class="">Ginny hugged her again. “My colleagues at the paper, he means. No respect for the free press, eh, Potter?”</p>
<p class="">“I’ve got lots of respect for a free press,” muttered Harry. “I just don’t want to have people wandering around interfering with a crime scene—even if it is a twenty-year-old crime scene—and I especially don’t want them bothering the victim, who happens to be a good friend of mine that I’m really happy to have got back.”</p>
<p class="">“Hmm,” agreed Luna.</p>
<p class="">“Fair enough,” granted Ginny. “Well, not really, but it means I get an exclusive, and my writing gets to spend some time off of the sports pages, so how can I complain?”</p>
<p class="">“Oh, Ginny,” Luna said very seriously, “if you were unhappy, I am sure that you would complain quite a lot.” An odd frown pinched her face. “At least, you would have when you were younger.”</p>
<p class="">“Oh, believe me,” said Harry, rising to clear the table, “that bit hasn’t changed in the slightest.”</p>
<p class="">Luna looked up. “I’m glad.”</p>
<p class=""> </p>
<p class="">: :</p>
<p class=""> </p>
<p class="">After dinner, they retired to Luna’s room again. Luna wanted to know everything that she had missed. Had climate change driven the Snorkack herds into Germany and Poland, as her father had predicted? What was it like having children? Was Neville really teaching at Hogwarts? How long had Minister Shacklebolt remained in office, and had the Rotfang Conspiracy succeeded in infiltrating the ranks of his supporters?</p>
<p class="">As the three of them sat on Luna’s bed and talked, Ginny found that the past twenty years had taken on an odd unreality; viewed through Luna’s wide eyes—through the lens that her questions provided—it was difficult to see everything that had happened as being quite as real as that warm room, or as Luna herself, who snuggled against Ginny, her head on Ginny’s shoulder, asking questions and expressing surprise and delight at each answer.</p>
<p class="">It was as if she had never left.</p>
<p class="">The children—they still seemed very real. Luna wanted to know all about them, of course, and listened very quietly as Ginny and Harry held forth about their brood: James, who seemed to manage as much mischief as Fred and George together all on his own; Al, who had his father’s ability to find trouble, but his mother’s ability to talk his way out of it; and of course Lilu, their quiet, fierce youngest, who loved animals—seen and unseen—and was in the midst of her first year in Ravenclaw House.</p>
<p class="">“You’ve told her about me?” asked Luna, sounding both shy and dubious.</p>
<p class="">“Of course we have,” Harry answered.</p>
<p class="">“I shouldn’t imagine there was terribly much to tell.”</p>
<p class="">“Don’t be silly, Loony!” said Ginny. “We told her all about how you and I grew up together, how we went to school together.”</p>
<p class="">“And everyone knows how you fought alongside us,” Harry added. “You’re remembered as quite a hero.”</p>
<p class="">That brought the memory of the article that Ginny had submitted flashing back into her mind.</p>
<p class="">“Hmm,” said Luna, playing with Ginny’s hair. “It is rather odd to have shared so much of my life with you, Ginny, and yet to find that you’ve lived so much without me.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny found her vision blurring. “Believe me, you were missed.”</p>
<p class="">“Hmm.”</p>
<p class="">They told her about what had happened to their friends—Hermione’s refusal to submit to so patriarchal a role as Ron’s wife, even as she’d happily become the mother of his children as well as the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Harry’s boss; Hannah and Neville’s twelve-year-long courtship, their disaster-filled wedding and happy married life; Susan Bones’s invention of HyperFloo, which had brought some of the advantages of muggle information technology to the magical world, and coincidentally made her the richest witch in Europe; Anthony Goldstein’s ascent through the ranks to his current status as Kingsley’s right-hand man and heir-apparent; Dean’s—</p>
<p class="">The minute Dean’s name came up, Luna became very quiet. When his name came up again, she burrowed into Ginny’s neck and told them that she had become rather tired. “If you have a sleeping draught, I think I should probably take it and go to bed. Apparently sleeping for twenty years wasn’t enough.”</p>
<p class="">Harry handed her the bottle of EZ-Kip. “Good night, Luna. I’m going to go up and get changed. Ginny?”</p>
<p class="">“I’ll be right up.”</p>
<p class="">“Good night, Harry. I am very glad that you found me.”</p>
<p class="">“So are we,” he said, smiling and turning up the circular stairs to the master bedroom, which was two stories up.</p>
<p class="">Luna shook the bottle and took a swallow. To Ginny’s surprise, she smiled. “How nice that they haven’t change the flavor in all these years.”</p>
<p class="">“Uh, right.” Ginny had been about to apologize for the taste of the noxious stuff. Harry swore they made all potions as awful as possible so that people wouldn’t even consider drinking them for fun.</p>
<p class="">After tossing back another swig, Luna said, “My father used to give this to me after my mother died. I’ve always associated it with that time.”</p>
<p class="">“Oh! I’m so sorry!”</p>
<p class="">“Don’t be. He would come down here and tuck me in, give me a kiss on the nose and tell me how I would never be alone. It is a very happy memory.” She downed the last of the potion, put the bottle on her nightstand, pulled back the covers and flowed into the bed. “Mmm. I’m sleepy.”</p>
<p class="">“Good.” Ginny stroked her friend’s face. “You’ll never be alone, Luna.” She leaned down and kissed Luna on the nose; a whiff of the scent of the salve—or perhaps of the sex that Ginny and Harry had had that afternoon—struck Ginny to the core, and she began to pull away.</p>
<p class="">Before she could, however, Luna tugged her close, so that Ginny all but fell on top of Luna, and Ginny’s nipples stiffened further. “I meant what I said,” the breathy voice whispered into Ginny’s ear. “I am glad that you found me—that you and Harry found me. I think I should have been terribly lonely and sad if it had been anyone else. But as odd as this has all been, it has been rather lovely, to see you. To find out that you are still such lovely people and have done such interesting things, just as I have always thought that you would.” Then she yawned.</p>
<p class="">“Thanks.” Flicking the lights off with her wand, Ginny stood, crossed her arms, and walked toward the stairs. Uncertain, she turned back.</p>
<p class="">Luna spoke before Ginny had to decide what to say. “I think your yabbos are gorgeous too.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny stood there, trying to listen to her heart, to her body—to figure out what she could possibly say, what she <em>wanted </em>to say—until she heard a gentle snore from across the room.</p>
<p class="">“Thank you,” she whispered into the dark, and turned once more up the stairs.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Splice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings: Fantasy-partner sex.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="">When she arrived up in Luna’s parents’ room, Harry was already lying in bed. “She asleep?”</p>
<p class="">“Yeah. Out like a light. Actually seemed to like the taste of the stuff, if you can believe that.” Ginny started to change out of the clothes that she’d been wearing all day—aside from the half-hour or so when she hadn’t been wearing anything at all</p>
<p class="">“From Luna? Why not.” He smiled at her and pulled back the covers, revealing himself to be naked.</p>
<p class="">Bloody hell, that did funny things to her too—her breath caught and her middle fluttered, and she felt altogether thirteen years old, not thirty-eight. “Didn’t you bring back pyjamas for yourself?”</p>
<p class="">“You know I hate to wear them.” It was true. Around the time that they’d first started sleeping together (as opposed to just having sex), he’d discovered that he liked not wearing anything to bed—that besides being (in his opinion) more comfortable, it made him feel less like a schoolboy and less like the Dursleys’ unwelcome boarder.</p>
<p class="">Unless they had visitors or were in someone else’s home. “Harry, this is Luna’s place.”</p>
<p class="">He smirked. “You think she’ll care? Besides, she’s out for the night.”</p>
<p class="">She rolled her eyes at him. “You just want to show her your manly bits.” When he began to protest, she tossed her knickers into his face before sliding in beside him, no more clothed than he was. “Figured you’d got the chance to see hers, so you’d return the favor?”</p>
<p class="">He tossed the knickers over her and into the corner where the rest of their clothes were piled. “Not a chance. My bits are all yours, to do with as you please.”</p>
<p class="">“And don’t you forget it.” She snuggled up against him. The warm solidity in him stilled some of the wobbles, even as it stirred other reactions. “She told me she thought I had gorgeous yabbos too.”</p>
<p class="">“You do,” he said, cupping one of the small, flabby chunks of flesh in question in one searching hand. “She’s a woman of taste.”</p>
<p class="">“Woman.” Taste. <em>Spreading the salve over Luna’s large, white breasts, along her open cunt. </em>“Barely.”</p>
<p class="">“Woman enough.” He pinched the nipple, teasing a gasp from Ginny before moving to the other breast. “By the time you were nineteen, you were very much a woman.”</p>
<p class="">“Or thought I was.”</p>
<p class="">He kissed her ear then, his cock springing up between her legs, and she felt her body, which was already in a state just short of full arousal, slide that last step: quickened pulse, heat flowing outward, a tingling, electric triangle radiating between her nipples and her clit. “Randy,” she groaned, squeezing her thighs together around his cock.</p>
<p class="">“Bloody <em>hell…</em>” groaned Harry, and pulled at her earlobe with his teeth. He began to thrust, and the length of him slid along her lips and between her thighs and sent that current dancing from her clit to her nipples and back.</p>
<p class="">She hissed and turned away from him, his cock still between her thighs, so that the head poked out from her own pubic hair. She lifted her leg and reached down to guide him in, but his hand stopped her.</p>
<p class="">They stayed there for a moment, the flare of desire—when had they last fucked twice in a day?—flickering.</p>
<p class="">Harry sighed, and the flare began to fade. “Weird day.”</p>
<p class="">“Wonderful,” said Ginny. “But yeah. Weird.” She felt his cock soften beneath her hand. “Harry?”</p>
<p class="">“The Aurors I’m sending. You know that’s not to keep reporters away, right?” He spooned against her, protective rather than seductive. “At least, not just.”</p>
<p class="">“Yeah. I figured. Not that I mind the exclusive.” As he wrapped an arm around her, she pulled it between her breasts. “Whoever gave her that egg twenty years ago might decide to finish the job.”</p>
<p class="">She felt the hot splash of another sigh against her neck. “Be careful tomorrow, okay? Stay with her? Stay in the tower if you can?”</p>
<p class="">“Okay.” Ginny could feel him relax against her. Funny—all the times that she’d asked him to be careful, and all he’d been able to say in response was <em>I’ll try</em>.</p>
<p class="">“Thanks.” He kissed her shoulder. They lay there quietly, as they had done so often over the years, waiting for one of the children to go to sleep, or simply enjoying the quiet.After a good five minutes or so, Harry whispered, “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you. And it would be just unfair for anything to happen to Luna now.”</p>
<p class="">“Hmm,” she agreed, and pulled him closer. “She really is amazing, isn’t she?”</p>
<p class="">“Yup.” Ginny could feel the puff of the word against her earlobe. Harry’s cock, still semi-hard, pulsed lightly against her labia.</p>
<p class="">“And of course,” she said, feeling a ember of that strange, wild spark in her glimmering forth again, “she does have gorgeous yabbos.”</p>
<p class="">She could feel the surprised laugh, rather than hear it. “She certainly does. Not as gorgeous as yours, of course.”</p>
<p class="">“Liar.”</p>
<p class="">That provoked an audible laugh. Pulling on her shoulder, he slid on top of her, taking her breasts in his hands. “Look at them! They’re perfect and lovely, and they have freckles, and they’ve fed all three of our children.”</p>
<p class="">She felt the pink rising to her skin, both from pleasure at the compliment—undeserved as it might be—and at newly returning arousal. Pressing her chest up into his hands, she took on the breathy voice from that afternoon. “It is very nice of you to say that you like my yabbos, Harry.”</p>
<p class="">He grinned down at her, palming her nipples. “You’re very welcome, <em>Luna</em>. I used to have fantasies about them, you know, when we were kids.”</p>
<p class="">“Hmm. Ginny told me about the fantasies.”</p>
<p class="">Though he was still grinning, Harry’s eyes widened in alarm. “Did you really?”</p>
<p class="">Now it was Ginny’s turn to laugh. “No!”</p>
<p class="">He looked relieved—but almost disappointed.</p>
<p class="">Ginny grinned up at him, taking his hands and pressing them against her breasts even more firmly. “She wasn’t quite sure what you wanted to do, though.She said you got distracted before you told her.”</p>
<p class="">“Distracted,” he grunted, eyes narrowing. “What do you think I wanted to do with them?” He squeezed her nipples between his outstretched fingers.</p>
<p class="">She hissed. “I… I don’t know,” she answered, her voice breathy now all on its own.</p>
<p class="">“Wanted to see them of course.” He released the nipples, and then clamped them tight again.</p>
<p class="">“Ah! Well, how lovely that you’ve now had the chance.”</p>
<p class="">“Absolutely. And I wanted to touch them.”</p>
<p class="">“Ah.”</p>
<p class="">“Dreamed about watching Ginny touch them. Kiss them.”</p>
<p class="">Why did the image of Harry wanking to the image of Ginny playing with Luna’s breasts make <em>Ginny </em>feel so hot?</p>
<p class="">“Used to think about Ginny pressing your tits together while…”</p>
<p class="">“While?” Her voice was barely a whisper now, and high.</p>
<p class="">“While I… stuck my cock between them.” His face was dark now, and Ginny knew that he was embarrassed, but that, like her, he was too turned on to care. “I fucked your tits, Luna, while Ginny helped.”</p>
<p class="">Where in Merlin’s name had sixteen-year-old Harry got an image like <em>that</em>? One of the twins’ magazines? Some boy’s brag? <em>If he’d told me then, would it have made me as randy as it does right now?</em> “I… Ginny is holding my breasts together now, Harry.” She was, too. “Would you like to fuck them?”</p>
<p class="">He grunted, looking down at her with that predator’s intensity that always turned her to jelly.</p>
<p class="">“Please, Harry,” she said, before realizing that she had dropped her Luna voice. “Please fuck Luna’s tits.”</p>
<p class="">“Never could refuse you,” he growled. She could feel his cock jump, rock-hard, against her sternum. Letting go of her hands he grabbed the heavy oak headboard and scooted forward, pressing his cock into the valley of flesh between her breasts.</p>
<p class="">Hermione had talked to her about doing this, of course, during her time of the month, since oral sex with Ron was out of the question given the size of things she really didn’t want to think about, either in that moment, feeling Harry’s cock spreading her tits, feeling his hips roll against her nipples, nor when Hermione and she had discussed it after several bottles of wine. Hermione had said that she and Ron had both enjoyed it, and Ginny could see why: it felt nice, yeah, though nothing special, but there was something amazing about feeling the heat of him piercing her in a way that was so new yet so familiarly intimate, even as she was able to stare up at him and watch the affect that her body was having on him.</p>
<p class=""><em>Ah, well.</em> When she and Hermione had had that drunken giggle-fest back during Ginny’s first off-season with the Harpies, Ginny’d had even less to press together than she had now, while Hermione had had plenty. <em>Not as much as Luna, of course….</em> And, since the very beginning, giving and receiving oral sex had been a favorite part of Ginny and Harry’s sexual routine.</p>
<p class="">
  <em>Sexual this day may be, but it’s anything but routine.</em>
</p>
<p class="">Precum from Harry’s cock was beginning to slicken the insides of Ginny’s breasts and dab the underside of her chin. His eyes had begun to drift closed. “Do you know, Harry,” Ginny said in her Luna voice, “Ginny has always said that it was very nice to take that lovely penis of yours in her mouth. I wonder…”</p>
<p class="">As he withdrew, she looked down to where his cock was nestled and realized, <em>Yes, this will be lovely indeed. </em>As the head of his cock, dark and glistening, pressed up from between her tits, she opened her mouth and welcomed it against her tongue, giving the tip a flick as it began to withdraw again.</p>
<p class="">“<em>Luna!</em>” moaned Harry, and Ginny felt tickled that he didn’t need to be reminded of the game, even as a small prick of jealousy jabbed at her, and yet Luna’s presence—her <em>real</em> presence, her presence as an <em>idea</em>—filled Ginny with a feeling, so much feeling that she felt herself overflowing, inside and out, and <em>she </em>was moaning, <em>screaming</em>, wordless, and wet heat flowed down and <em>up</em> and Harry was coming, into her mouth, onto her neck, and <em>Luna…</em></p>
<p class="">And Harry was kissing her, panting, lying atop her. “<em>Hell.</em>” He kissed her cheeks, her neck, her chin, her mouth, everywhere that there his jism had flowed, and then his mouth found hers, and the taste of him in his own, like liquor.</p>
<p class="">His wet cock pressed against her belly, still streaming, and she could feel him soft, but knew her need and knew that he could meet it. “Eat me,” she whispered, panted, “eat me, eat me.”</p>
<p class="">He stilled atop her for a moment, and she wondered what she had said to break the mood, because—<em>oh!—</em>she was still in the mood, when he moved atop her and whispered back, “Do you trust me?”</p>
<p class="">“With my life.” It was not anything that she had ever said to him: it was something she would have felt too silly to say when they were young and had never felt the need to say in later years. Yet it was true, and she hoped that he had always known it.</p>
<p class="">His mouth found hers again. He whispered again: “Put your hands up.”</p>
<p class="">She did, and was not shocked when he bound them to the cornerposts of the big bed. “<em>Obscuro</em>,” he murmured, and her vision darkened.</p>
<p class="">“<em>Harry?</em>” she groaned—frightened even though she knew that he meant her nothing but good.</p>
<p class="">A breathy, hoarse voice answered her, “Harry’s gone, Ginny. He asked me to take care of you.”</p>
<p class="">The voice was such a ridiculous put-on that she almost burst out laughing; the reversal of her own game, however, was so sweet, and the fantasy so close to the half-submerged images that she’d been trying not to look at since this afternoon that she found herself gasping, “<em>Luna?</em>”</p>
<p class="">“Yes,” answered breathy falsetto.</p>
<p class="">She did laugh now, and she hoped that Harry knew her well enough to know how delighted she felt. “How nice!”</p>
<p class="">“I think so too.”</p>
<p class="">His body moved off of hers. She reached for him with her lips, her legs, but he was out of her reach. “And… how are you going to, er, <em>take care</em> of me?”</p>
<p class="">No answer came, but suddenly a wet heat surrounded the big toe of her left foot, and <em>ooooooohh…</em></p>
<p class="">She had always wondered what Harry felt like when she took him in her mouth. Perhaps she didn’t know now, but she certainly had an idea…</p>
<p class="">Unbidden, the image sprang to her mind of a blonde head bent over her foot rather than a black one, and if anything, the image made her cunt flower further. “God, Harry, Harry, please!”</p>
<p class="">“Harry isn’t here, Ginny. It’s just me.”</p>
<p class="">Again the impulse to laugh bubbled up, but lips found her ankle and a tongue began to trace its way up the inside of her calf; laughter melted into a moan. “<em>Luna</em>…”</p>
<p class="">“Yes,” came a hissed answer, followed by another murmer, and then Ginny felt the susurrus of hair flowing over her thigh, and she let out another cry: “<em>Luna</em>!”</p>
<p class="">And then fingers found her lips and squeezed and she was wordless and thoughtless, and a tongue touched her clit…</p>
<p class="">Ginny had discovered masturbation so young that she couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t diddled herself. When Percy had tried to tell her it wasn’t proper, she’d been perhaps seven, and had told him that he was being silly, that she’d seen him at it three times that day, so in future he could remember to close his own dooto knock, but she’d do what she wanted in her own room.</p>
<p class="">But the first time that she could remember having an orgasm—a real time-stopping, toe-curling orgasm—was late one night at Luna’s, sitting on her bed. It must have been just before third year, because Ginny had been telling Luna about spying on Bill with a girl at the Quidditch World Cup—actually, spying on the girl, because Bill had been lying on his back, out of sight, and she’d been just barely visible through the flap of her tent, kneeling astride him, pinching at her nipples, screaming in a language Ginny couldn’t even guess at. And the two of them had lain there, pinching at their own nipples, and Ginny had started to giggle, because, actually, it felt really <em>good</em>, and then Luna had begun to ask about Harry—she often did when they did this—and Ginny had said that she’d really like to introduce Luna to Harry. After all, Ginny was seeing Michael—why shouldn’t Harry fall in love with Luna? And Luna, pinching her tits berry-bright, had gone all pink and said no one would fall in love with her, but Ginny had told her she was being silly—Luna was lovely and loveable, and Harry was sure to fall in love with her, and then Luna would be the one sitting astride Harry, pinching her nipples and moaning.</p>
<p class="">And Luna had moaned.</p>
<p class="">And Ginny had seen it as clearly as the memory of Bill with the foreign girl: Luna fucking Harry. Clearer. And she’d wanted it. Wanted them to fuck. Wanted to watch them fuck. And in her mind then, <em>she </em>was Luna, and the fingers in her cunt Harry, and she screamed as Luna’s mouth whipped hot against her clit and her fingers lit a flame inside that screamed <em>Lunalunalunaluna!</em></p>
<p class="">And Ginny was weeping beneath her spell-cast blindfold, her chest heaving and her cunt pulsing around fingers that Ginny knew to be Harry’s but was certain were her oldest, new-found friend’s.</p>
<p class="">“I love you too, Ginny,” said Luna’s true voice from the foot of the bed. “And Ginny was right, Harry. You have a very nice penis.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Ellipsis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings: Much discussion of sex. Some stuff you've all seen coming... and hopefully some you haven't!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Did I say something?” asked Luna, as Harry withdrew his mouth and hand from Ginny’s cunt and dove off of the bed—spell-blinded as she was, Ginny had to assume that he was diving toward the pile of clothing that they’d left in the corner.</p>
<p>“LUNA!” was all that Ginny could think to say; she was deeply embarrassed, but also coming down off of an orgasm that had left her feeling as if half of her bones might have been Banished. Some part of her body clearly opted for modesty and tried to cover her nakedness, but of course her hands were bound to the headboard and so she lay there, splayed open like shucked oyster. </p>
<p>“Yes, you said my name quite loudly before, too,” said Luna, very quietly. Ginny could feel her friend sit on the end of the bed; she tried to pull her knees up to cover herself, but realized that that simply exposed her fanny, and so she gave it up as a bad job and let her legs flop bonelessly open once again. Luna continued, “That was what woke me.”</p>
<p>“We’re <em>so</em> sorry we woke you, Luna,” whimpered Harry. There was a loud thump, followed by a grunt; Ginny got the impression that he’d fallen over while trying to pull his trousers on.</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t be sorry,” Luna said. “I’d been having a rather disturbing dream about eggs with eyes, and then I heard my name, and I found myself up here, and you were having sex in a way I’ve never considered and Ginny was saying my name and having what looked to be a rather remarkable orgasm, and she said that she loved me, which was very nice, and all in all it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Thank you.” Luna’s voice had a liquid sound to it that Ginny didn’t recognize.</p>
<p>“Um, you’re welcome,” said Ginny, squirming. <em>Loved...? </em>“But Luna—”</p>
<p>A featherlight touch brushed the inside of Ginny’s leg, and she froze. She wanted to ask—<em>tell </em>Luna to stop, or perhaps to move just a <em>little </em>further up, but she found that all of her muscles had frozen, like a faun’s at the sight of a hound.</p>
<p>“Beautiful,” whispered Luna, and Ginny heard Harry gasp, and felt long hair brush her thighs, and then a tongue ran up the length of her lips and—</p>
<p>If the orgasm that Harry had lit in Ginny had gone off like a bonfire, smoldering from the inside until the whole of her suddenly exploded into flame, then this was like a celestial version of one of George and Ron’s fireworks: out of darkness, infinite light.</p>
<p>When Ginny’s hearing cleared, she heard what might have been an echo: Luna’s voice whispering again. “Beautiful.”</p>
<p>Ginny could think of nothing to add.</p>
<p>“Listen, Luna—” Harry began.</p>
<p>“Oh, Harry, don’t feel as if you have to get dressed again. Ginny has told me that you like to sleep in the nude. I do myself. And I’ve already seen you, so there’s no need to be bashful.”</p>
<p>“Uh...”</p>
<p>“Look, I’ll take mine off too. That way it’s simpler. I find that other people wearing clothing makes me feel more naked.”</p>
<p>Some distant part of Ginny’s mind actually found itself thinking that that made sense. Which it did, in a very elliptical sort of way. Though how one could be more naked than naked...</p>
<p>Harry, however, didn’t seem to be buying “Look, Luna—”</p>
<p>Ginny heard  the harlequin-colored pyjamas hit the bed—felt cotton drape over one of her own limp feet.</p>
<p>Harry was silent.</p>
<p>Ginny was beyond. “Luna. I think you’re scaring Harry. I’d be terrified that you’d walked in on us screaming your name while fucking if I hadn’t just had two brain-scrambling trips out of my body in the last five minutes.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” said Luna, sounding quite contrite. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. In all honesty, I didn’t think it was possible. You are the two bravest people I know.”</p>
<p>“Thanks,” Harry said, polite boy that he was.</p>
<p>“Speaking of which,” said Ginny, “as much as I’m enjoying lying here—”</p>
<p>“Oh!” Harry released her with a quick <em>Finite</em>.</p>
<p>When Ginny’s vision cleared, the first thing that she saw was the pyjamas draped over her toes, and Luna’s hands, mothing at the buttercream cotton. Looking up, she saw two breasts—breasts that she had seen a lot more of today than she ever could have imagined—and of course those two pale eyes, focused, as Ginny known they would be, directly on her.</p>
<p>Ginny pulled her knees to her own chest, very aware that it was a pointless exercise. "So. Bad dream about eggs with eyes?" She reached out with both hands. </p>
<p>Luna folded herself into them, resting her head on Ginny's knees, soft breasts against hard shins. "Yes. Having bad dreams can be terribly interesting sometimes, but not when they're boring and obvious."</p>
<p>"I know what you mean," muttered Harry, who hadn't had a bad dream that Ginny knew of in years.</p>
<p>"Hmm," agreed Luna.</p>
<p>Ginny stroked her hair, which was softer than Ginny remembered. "Happy birthday."</p>
<p>"Hmm." </p>
<p>Harry sat on the side of the bed. Ginny watched him stifle the urge to reach out and touch Luna's arm, and so she did it for him, stroking the white miracle of it—still like marble and yet soft and <em>warm....</em> His eyes following Ginny's fingers, Harry got the voice on that he usually saved for taking the mickey out of the kidlets: "Come on, Luna. Even you have to admit—a twenty-year trip into the future is a pretty cool birthday present."</p>
<p>Luna's head lifted slightly. "Oh, yes, it is. It is the present I left behind, however, that I'm afraid rather saddens me. My father. My boyfriend...."</p>
<p>Harry winced, evidently realizing that his attempt at humor had gone astray, and then his eyes widened. "Presents!" He leapt up. "I'll be right back!"</p>
<p>Luna lifted her head to watch him scamper to the door and down the stairs, his semi-erection bobbing as he went. "He does have a nice penis, Ginny."</p>
<p>"Indeed he does," she said, with a grin.</p>
<p>"It is terribly funny," said Luna, "but I've never actually <em>seen</em> Dean’s penis. I’ve touched it quite a lot, of course, which is lovely, but he was quite shy about letting me see it.” She lifted her head and rested her chin on Ginny’s knee, gazing up.</p>
<p>Ginny waited for a question, but none came. “Yes, Luna. I’ve seen Dean’s cock. Is that what you wanted to know?”</p>
<p>“Know?” Luna tilted her head. “I want to know everything. That was why the Sorting Hat put me in Ravenclaw, you know.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>She burrowed back against Ginny’s legs. “I’d actually wanted to be placed in Gryffindor. Or in Slytherin. I thought there might be a lot for me to learn there. I asked it if I could be rotated among all four houses, but it only found that amusing.”</p>
<p>Ginny tried to imagine Luna in with the Slytherins. It was a funny picture, definitely. “Would have been nice having you in Gryffindor.”</p>
<p>Luna hummed in agreement. Looking up, she rested her chin between Ginny’s knees. “You said just now that you had taken two trips out of your body. Did you mean orgasms?”</p>
<p>“Er, yes.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Yes, I think I understand the reference. Did I actually give you an orgasm, then, when  I touched your clitoris with my tongue?” There was nothing shy or suggestive about the question; Luna looked at most mildly curious.</p>
<p>“Yes.” Ginny felt a small aftershock pass through her.</p>
<p>“How interesting.” Luna’s eyes floated downward in thought; Ginny couldn’t help feeling that those pale blue eyes were drifting down to Ginny’s crotch. “I didn’t think that that would happen. I’m terribly sorry, Ginny.”</p>
<p>“<em>Sorry</em>? Why on earth...?” <em>Out of darkness, infinite light. </em>Ginny ran her fingers through her friend’s flyaway hair. “You don’t have to be sorry, Luna, I promise.” </p>
<p>Luna frowned. “But orgasms are usually sexual.” She blinked. “Aren’t they?”</p>
<p>Having no idea where this was going, Ginny could only chuckle. “Of course they are!”</p>
<p>Luna’s frown deepened into a kind of pout. A pout of perplexity. “I thought that a sexual act was supposed to involve a male and a female.”</p>
<p>“Wh...?” Luna didn’t seem to be teasing; she was capable of joking, Ginny remembered—or at least, thought she remembered—but seemed quite sincere. “Luna. You... You do know that there are girls who have sex with other girls. And boys with boys. Right?”</p>
<p>“There are?” The pout dissipated as the eyes exploded to their full, astonishing width. “Truly?”</p>
<p>Laughing again, Ginny shook her head. “Come on! You shared a dorm with Orla for seven years! She was the president of the Gay and Lesbian Pride Club—it wasn’t as if she were trying to hide the fact!”</p>
<p>Wide, wide, moon-blue eyes blinked. “I... That was a group for people who were terribly happy and proud of their heritage, wasn’t it? Didn’t Orla’s family come from Lesbos?”</p>
<p>“Sheffield, I think,” snorted Ginny.</p>
<p>“Oh. She didn’t look particularly Greek, it’s true. I suppose it is unlikely that so many boys and girls would all have families from one Aegean island” Luna’s face seemed to contract, even as her eyes expanded once again. “Then... Orla liked having sex with other girls?”</p>
<p>Ginny goggled at her friend. “Why do you think Polly Philiaginedes and she shared a bed the last two years of school? You were the one who told <em>me</em> about that!”</p>
<p>“I...” Luna seemed to be trying to calculate very quickly; her pupils shifted rapidly back and forth. “I thought they were trying to keep each other safe. Given all of the danger sixth year. They were quite good friends, you know.”</p>
<p>“Not just friends, Loony.”</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>“And... Not just sex, you know. Orla and Polly have been married almost as long as me and Harry.”</p>
<p>Luna sat up, her face quite still. “They are married?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Oh, bollocks—another thing you missed. Homosexual marriage has been legal since a few years after you... disappeared.”</p>
<p>“Homosexual?”</p>
<p>It was almost impossible now for Ginny to believe that her friend wasn’t having her on, but Luna’s face remained sincere and open, and Ginny tried to answer in kind. “You know—gays, lesbians, people who love people who are the same gender? Homosexual? Same sex? Boys who love boys? Girls who—?”</p>
<p>“OH!” In a moment, Luna’s expression shifted from confusion to the bright look of wonder that had been frozen on her face for twenty years. “I thought it meant people who like to have sex like everyone else—people who didn’t like to deviate from the norm.”</p>
<p>Again, Ginny laughed. “The opposite, I think.”</p>
<p>Cheeks pink, Luna rested back against Ginny’s shins and looked down again. This time it was quite clear that she was indeed staring at Ginny’s crotch. “Ginny? Did I have sex with <em>you</em>, just now, then?”</p>
<p>“I suppose.” Ginny felt herself pinkening too—felt her nipples tighten even as she was very aware of Luna’s poking against her legs. “Yeah.”</p>
<p>“Does that mean that I’ve lost my virginity?”</p>
<p>“I don’t...”</p>
<p>Luna’s face fell. “Oh. What a shame.”</p>
<p>“I... I don’t think it’s... If you...”</p>
<p>“I do very much want to lose my virginity, you see.” Over Luna’s head, Ginny saw Harry enter the bedroom carrying a couple of packages. Luna nodded, bouncing her head against Ginny’s knees. “And I don’t foresee Dean being interested in having sex with me now. He is married.” </p>
<p><em>Won’t mean he won’t want it,</em> thought Ginny, <em>though I bet Parvati wouldn’t be exactly understanding.</em> She grimaced, and Harry frowned.</p>
<p>Luna cocked her head, so that her cheek was resting against Ginny’s left knee. “Am I wrong in that assumption as well? I'd always thought that married people don’t have sex with other people, that that was one of the points of saying that you were married but perhaps that was just my parents.”</p>
<p>As Ginny tried to work out some response to that, she looked to Harry for help. He sat beside them, staring at the faded, wrapped packages in his hands—probably trying to avoid looking at Luna. “No, of course not, of course you're right—at least, that isn’t how it’s supposed to work. But it does happen. Usually because one partner or the other can’t keep... Can’t stay faithful. And that’s always bad. But sometimes... Like what’s-her-name...” Now he looked to her for help.</p>
<p>Ginny nodded. “Polly—we were just talking about them. She had a baby—two—with Orla’s brother Andrew because she and Orla didn’t want to use magical insemination.”</p>
<p>“How interesting,” said Luna. “How did that work, do you think? Was Orla there? I know that she and Andrew were quite close, but I wouldn’t think that they’d have been interested in having sex together.”</p>
<p>Harry look rather alarmed. “I… wouldn’t think so.” </p>
<p>“Hmm.” Luna slid down from Ginny’s knee and slithered up until her head was burrowed beneath Ginny’s chin, her arm wrapped beneath Ginny’s breast. “Is Dean fat now?”</p>
<p>Harry laughed.</p>
<p>“Well,” Luna continued, her breath tickling Ginny’s nipples, “you’ve both filled out rather nicely. Dean, however, was never quite active as either of you. And so it seems to me that he might have got rather tubby over the past few years.”</p>
<p>“The opposite, actually,” said Harry, sounding as if he might be trying not to laugh. “He’s...” Harry looked at Ginny.</p>
<p>“He fell apart,” she sighed. “When you... disappeared. He...” <em>He drank himself into oblivion. He nearly drove himself to an early grave before Parvati straightened him out.</em> “He fell apart. And then, once he’d decided to... to move on, he became a bit of a fitness nut.”</p>
<p>Ginny couldn’t see Luna’s expression, but it felt as if she were frowning.</p>
<p>“He did lose a lot of his hair, though,” Ginny added, though she wasn’t certain why.</p>
<p>“Oh,” sighed Luna, and she sounded somewhat happier. She wrapped herself even more tightly against Ginny, curling her legs under Ginny’s bum. </p>
<p>Harry sat behind Luna, his eyes fixed on the blonde girl’s face. “He didn’t paint at all for years.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Now she didn’t seem at all happy. “What a shame.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” agreed Harry.</p>
<p>They lay there for a moment, and it felt oddly like the nights when Lily had wandered up to their bed after a nightmare and snuggled herself between them, trying desperately to get back to sleep. Though at the moment, the feelings running through Ginny didn't seem to be tending toward the motherly. She looked over to her husband. The look on his face was like nothing that she had ever seen there before. Stoic, definitely—a perennial expression of his. Concerned. Randy.</p>
<p>Definitely not fatherly.</p>
<p>She winked at him, and he startled out of whatever revery she’d lost him to.</p>
<p>“Presents,” he said, his voice thick as if he hadn’t used it for weeks.</p>
<p>“Presents?” asked Luna, turning her head toward him while keeping her body glued to Ginny’s. </p>
<p>He held up two packages, wrapped in the same midnight blue paper. The memory flooded back to Ginny: wrapping these together the morning of Luna’s party. They’d had a fight over—what? Harry’s present? And then they’d had a really great make-up fuck. And then sitting in bed wrapping....</p>
<p>A flying fuck. The whole, pissed party crowd Apperating over to Ottery St Catchpole.</p>
<p>He was staring down at the presents. “I brought these here when we couldn’t find you. Figured... You should have them, whenever...” He looked up, and a new set of emotions seemed to be adding themselves to the ones that had already been there: sorrow, pain, joy.</p>
<p>Tears began to squeeze Ginny’s eyes even as the thought flooded through her: he too had hoped for Luna’s return. It hadn’t just been her. </p>
<p>He shrugged. “They’ve been in your night stand all of this time. Thought you might like to open them.” Luna disengaged herself from Ginny, and they both turned toward him. He placed the presents on the bed. “The big one’s Ginny’s.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Luna said, very seriously, “I can’t decide which one to save for last.”</p>
<p>“Open hers first,” said Harry, shooting Ginny a shy, sly grin. </p>
<p>At first she thought he must be up to something, but then she remembered her gift, and realized that his discomfort hadn’t dissipated entirely. She pulled the larger package in front of Luna. “Go on.”</p>
<p>Pulling her wand from her hair, Luna daintily began to dispel the Spell-o-tape that held the package together. Ginny had forgot this: Luna hated to tear any of the paper. One after another, she pealed away the layers of gauzy wrapping revealing at last the distinctive maroon and lavender box from Madam Malkin’s. Ginny hadn’t seen one in years, since Dierdre Malkin had sold out to Gladrags, breaking Molly Weasley’s heart. </p>
<p>Ginny suddenly felt as if the box shouldn’t be opened—this was almost certainly the last unopened present from her mother’s favorite store. </p>
<p>Fortunately, she was able to hold the impulse in; Luna opened the box and lifted out the filmy length of silk that was nestled within. “Ooo!” She held it up.</p>
<p>Harry’s face dropped. Clearly, like Ginny, he hadn’t remembered her gift being quite so... little. Sheer. Flimsy. </p>
<p>Luna started waving it, as if she were trying it out as a signal flag. Watching the silvery blue fabric flutter. </p>
<p>Ginny cleared her throat. “It’s a nightie.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Luna smiled brightly, even as her brows bunched, so that she looked—for her—rather dubious. “I thought perhaps it was a rather lovely scarf.”</p>
<p>“It’s charmed... I’ll show you.” Ginny held out her hand and Luna let the long, narrow swath of silk flow into her fingers. “Stand up.”</p>
<p>Dutifully, Ginny's friend slid over Harry's legs and off the side of the bed. Ginny's husband pulled his knees to his chest to let Ginny by—probably also to hide his own reaction. Poor boy. As Ginny rolled past him to sit on the edge of the bed, she let the silk of the nightie trail across his shins. Just so he shouldn't feel <em>too </em>comfortable sitting on a bed with two naked women. He grimaced and pulled his knees tight.</p>
<p>Ginny snorted and turned to her friend, who was standing as she'd been told. Running the fabric behind Luna's bum, she murmured, "Lift."</p>
<p>"Lift?"</p>
<p>"Your hands."</p>
<p>Again, Luna obeyed.</p>
<p>As Ginny wrapped the silk over Luna's hips, she thought, <em>How ridiculous. What was I thinking getting her this? </em>And then she thought, <em>I never felt ridiculous wearing mine.</em> Carefully, she crossed the nightie at Luna's crotch and then held the ends up in front of Luna's breasts. "Hold," she ordered.</p>
<p>Obedient still, Luna grabbed the ends of the gauzy fabric with her fingertips.</p>
<p>"Against your, er, yabos."</p>
<p>"Oh."</p>
<p>Ginny realized that the yabos in question—the gorgeous yabos in question—were right at her eye level. That she felt like falling into the gorge between them. That Harry had dreamed, had wanked at the idea of squeezing himself there... Ginny shivered, and reached back to pick up Harry's wand. Carefully she tapped it against each breast, and then over Luna's pubes.</p>
<p>The silk suddenly clung to Luna's flesh like paint.</p>
<p>Luna gave a breathy "Oh!" Taking her hands away, she looked down with delight. "How lovely!" She wiggled a bit to see if the charm would hold, and of course it did—these lovely, naughty things were designed to stay in place through a hell of a lot more than a little shimmy—but Ginny found herself mesmerized by the undulation. By the way that she could have counted the bumps on Luna's nipples through the silk. If she'd wanted.</p>
<p>Luna turned and wiggled again, looking over her own shoulder at her bum, at the way that the draped silk shook, even as Ginny took in the way that the cool blue accentuated the impossible whiteness of Luna's skin, that the scoop of the silk across that lovely arse accentuated the length of that straight, supple back. Luna turned back, still moving, and the charm at her crotch held perfectly, so that Ginny couldn't actually see Luna's privates, but the concealment only made her more aware of what was hidden.</p>
<p>
  <em>More naked than naked.</em>
</p>
<p>Ginny heard Harry take a sharp breath behind her.</p>
<p>"Oh," gasped Luna, running her hands over the silk. "Thank you! It's quite lovely!" She leaned down, and Ginny's whole world was suddenly all the glow of silvery-blue eyes and the light, quick press of surprisingly full lips against Ginny's own. "What a nice present! It is charmed for warmth, I see, which is pleasant. It can get quite chilly here at night. Is it for having sex in?"</p>
<p>"Yes," answered Harry tersely.</p>
<p>"Oh," sighed Luna again, though this time wistfully. "How nice."</p>
<p>"I figured," said Ginny, "that Dean wouldn't be able to play the virtuous idiot after he saw you in that."</p>
<p>Harry grunted.</p>
<p>"Oh. Thank you. He had said that we could fuck, you know. Though I suppose you didn't. I did get a chance to talk to you about it and I don't suppose Dean would have spoken to either of you—"</p>
<p>"No," Harry said.</p>
<p>"Hmm."</p>
<p>Ginny tore her eyes away from the impossible way that her gift fit and followed her friend's body and picked up the other, smaller package. "Harry's gift next." </p>
<p>Smiling widely, Luna took the present and repeated the painstaking process of removing the wrapping. </p>
<p>Ginny looked over at her husband again, still curled in on himself against the headboard, and gave him a smirk. He favored her with a grim, fleeting smile.</p>
<p>"Ooo." Luna lifted another length of sky blue silk from a small, velvet bag. Charmed to it was a small, simple, silver broach bearing a sapphire that Ginny could see matched the glow of Luna's eyes perfectly. As Harry had said it would. Luna held the necklace up. "This is beautiful."</p>
<p>"We had a hell of a row about that, the morning you disappeared."</p>
<p>"A row?"</p>
<p>"It's a choker," Harry said. "Here, let me have my wand." When Ginny handed it back to him, he moved closer, still managing somehow to keep his knees up in front of what Ginny suspected was a full-blown boner. "Now put the choker around your neck, Luna."</p>
<p>She did and Harry tapped the silk, sealing the charm. Wriggling once again in excitement, Luna skipped over to the vanity and examined the jewel at her throat in the mirror.</p>
<p>Harry slid up behind Ginny, and she could feel that, yes, he was indeed hard again. He said, "We had a row because Ginny thought that it was a bit... excessive."</p>
<p>"Hmm?" Luna blinked back at them.</p>
<p>"I guess she thought you'd be embarrassed. Or Dean might be, because he couldn't."</p>
<p>"Oh."</p>
<p>"Yeah, that," Ginny said, remembering that those were exactly the reasons she'd spelled out to him that morning when he'd sprung the idea on her. "But mostly... I think I was jealous."</p>
<p>"Jealous?" Luna's eyes widened alarmingly, flashing in the candlelight along with the jewel at her throat. "Oh, if you want it for yourself, I—"</p>
<p>"No," said Ginny. "It's meant to be yours. Jealous, not because you got that jewel, because he's given me many over the years"—emeralds, diamonds, children, memories—"but... It seemed like something you'd give someone you fancied. Not just a friend."</p>
<p>Luna sat back down on the bed, frowning, and touched Ginny's foot. "Oh, but Ginny, you know that Harry has only ever felt friendship toward me. And I am quite pleased with that!" Smiling, she touch Harry's bare knee with her other hand.</p>
<p>"Er," said Harry.</p>
<p>Ginny laid her hand atop Luna's. "As it happens, that's not quite true."</p>
<p>"I sure that you never had cause to be jealous of me." Luna frowned.</p>
<p>"Perhaps not," granted Ginny. "But Harry..."</p>
<p>Her husband's arms tightened around Ginny's waist. "I did fancy you, Luna. Quite a lot."</p>
<p>"No, I am certain that you did not."</p>
<p>"I did. I swear. I may not even have known that that was what it was, but—"</p>
<p>"No," Luna said, and stood. "You see, no one fancies me. I'm odd, and my eyes make people uncomfortable." She crossed her arms in front of her barely-clad breasts and looked toward the door.</p>
<p>"You're wrong," said Harry, the bullheaded, sweet idiot. "Dean fancied you a hell of a lot. And Neville fancied you, even if he never managed to say anything about it. Hell, Padma was looking at you today like you were breakfast, lunch <em>and </em>afters.” He laughed, but Luna looked at him blankly. “Luna. I fancied you. I did. Don’t... You're a beautiful young woman. I— That's the reason that I wanted to give you the jewel. It was just sitting in my vault, and when I found it, you can see it sort of glows, and I immediately thought, Luna glows like that, and I knew I had to give it to you.  So that everyone—Dean, everyone—would see how lovely you are."</p>
<p>"Oh," said Luna tonelessly. "Thank you both so very much for the lovely presents." She turned as if to walk back to the door. </p>
<p>Ginny took her wrist and stopped her. "Don't, Luna. It's true."</p>
<p>"No, I am afraid that it is not. I am capable of looking in the mirror. I know that what I see there, and it is nothing like what I see in front of me. And while I do not always understand why people think the rather unexpected things that they do, I do watch how they behave. I do not know about Padma, I suppose, but Neville never acted toward me as if he found me at all sexually attractive, nor, Harry, did you. Nor did Dean, which rather hurt.”</p>
<p>“Luna,” whispered Ginny, “he did, he—”</p>
<p>“Men who fancy women generally do not do everything that they can to avoid fucking those women.” </p>
<p>“Luna, love,” Ginny said, “it’s the opposite. He cared for you too much. I... He wanted it to be perfect for you.”</p>
<p>Luna smiled sadly and shook her head, the sapphire at her throat winking in the candlelight. “I am afraid that I cannot subscribe to that theory. Perhaps if I had got him to fuck me to... that night, then I might feel differently. However, he did not. Look at his relationship with you, Ginny. He certainly fancied you, yet that did not stop him from accepting your virginity.”</p>
<p>The long-forgot, disappointing silliness of it flooded back for the first time in decades. “Yeah, well, look how well that turned out.”</p>
<p>“Nonetheless, he was interested in you in a way that he was clearly never interested in me.”</p>
<p>Ginny could feel Harry all but growl in frustration against her back. “Come on, Luna. You want behavior? If I didn’t think you were attractive, then why have I been hiding my erection against my wife’s bum since you put that ridiculous bit of filth on?”</p>
<p>Luna’s mouth and eyes opened wide. “Filth?” </p>
<p>“That... silk... thing.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Luna looked down. The ends of the charmed silk barely covered the tops of her areolae. Between the two silvery strips, her pale skin was slowly turning pink. She gazed back up, hugely. “You have an erection, Harry?”</p>
<p>He tried to laugh, but to Ginny’s ear it was a pathetic attempt.</p>
<p>It was at this point that Ginny realized where all of this was headed. Where they were going. Where <em>she</em> wanted it... Her tips—finger, nose, nipples, all—buzzed as if with cold, but she did not feel cold at all. Still, she was frozen.</p>
<p>Luna sat back down, her sorrow apparently forgotten. “May I see it?”</p>
<p>“Luna...” Harry groaned, but the name acted on Ginny as it had that whole day, warming her, prompting her. She slid from between Harry’s legs: she could feel a strand of precum pull taut between her lower back and the tip of Harry’s cock. </p>
<p>“Oh,” said Luna’s, staring at the erection before Ginny’s husband’s legs with fascination. “I have never seen an erection before. It looks very nice.”</p>
<p>“Thanks!” As Harry laughed again rather manically, Ginny slid beside her friend and peered back at the very familiar cock that stood there, at the ready. “You’ve never...?”</p>
<p>“No. Hmm,” said Luna, and then turned to Ginny. “May I... touch it?”</p>
<p>Harry snorted another, somewhat more successful laugh. “How come you’re asking her?”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Luna’s eyes narrowed, but had focussed back on the cock under consideration. “The penis is yours, after all. I suppose that I was thinking that the erection is hers.”</p>
<p>This time it was Ginny who laughed, nerves sparkling. “No, Loony. That’s the point he was trying to make. That’s all yours.” Long, long ago, Ginny’s dad had explained how muggle automobile motors were driven by hundreds of tiny explosions per second, so that they only sounded like a smooth growl. Her heart felt... “Can she, Harry? Touch?” He gawked at her. “Please?”</p>
<p>He stared down idiotically, as if perhaps he’d thought they had been talking about something other than his dark red, emphatic hard-on. “Ginny... I don’t....” He gave a whimpering sigh. Really, it had had two good workouts already today. It should be happily asleep, as should they, if they hadn’t had other things on their minds. Clearly he wanted this. He turned his face away from them, but nodded.</p>
<p>Swift as snakestrike, long, white fingers wrapped themselves around a length of flesh that Ginny knew that no one but she had ever touched before. Harry gasped and looked up, his eyes locking with hers. The whites showed, panicked.</p>
<p>Luna hummed, running her fingertips up his length.</p>
<p>“Luna.” Ginny touched her friend’s naked back. “Do you want to know why I was screaming your name just now?”</p>
<p>Nodding, Luna continued to explore Harry’s erection. Ginny had only ever seen her like this when she was examining one of Hagrid’s madder, rarer creatures. </p>
<p>“Harry,” Ginny said, watching anxiety and pleasure war in her husband’s face, “do you want to tell her?”</p>
<p>He let out a groan, closed his eyes, but began to speak. “Sixth year. Your fifth. Ginny was seeing Dean. And you went with me...”</p>
<p>He gasped as Luna’s index finger explored his cock head, drawing patterns on the dark skin with the stream of clear fluid that was pooling at the tip. Leaning forward, licking her lips unselfconsciousy, Luna finished the phrase for him. “...as friends to Professor Slughorn’s. It was lovely. Though you spent a lot of the time off in the bathroom, as I remember.”</p>
<p>Spying on Malfoy and Snape, Ginny remembered vaguely.</p>
<p>Harry groaned again. “You... That night. I’d been... wanking like mad, months, thinking about...” </p>
<p>Luna reached out with her other hand, and Harry’s jaw dropped open.</p>
<p>“About me,” said Ginny.</p>
<p>“Of course he did.” Luna’s left hand weighed his balls. “I...” She fell uncharacteristically silent.</p>
<p>Ginny needed them to say what they weren’t saying. Needed this to happen soon before she lost her courage. “You went home that night, jumped into your bed, still in those silver dress robes, and diddled yourself for hours until you fell asleep, imagining it was Harry touching you.”</p>
<p>For one of the first time that Ginny could remember, Luna began to turn pink not from excitement but, apparently, embarrassment. “Yes.” Her hands remained frozen on Harry’s cock. “I did. And for many nights after that.”</p>
<p>Ginny slid up behind Luna. “Yeah. You told me. But that night, Harry was in his own four-poster, that nice, thick cock in his own hands, stroking himself just like you’re doing.”</p>
<p>“Thinking about you.”</p>
<p>Ginny’s finger’s trembled, but found their way to the bare sides of Luna’s breasts, and Luna gave a whimper, her grip of Harry tightening slightly.</p>
<p>“AH!” gasped Harry, but then he gritted his teeth and stared at Luna—at both of them. “No. <em>Shit</em>. No... You. Luna. Thought about... Thought about you. Thought about you. About...”</p>
<p>“About your tits.” Ginny run her fingers across the front of those very breasts—breasts she had touched as stone, but that were now soft, and warm and silk-clad. “About touching them. About pushing his cock between them.” Luna whimpered again, and whimpered again as Ginny pinched thickening nipples. “Wanked himself for months after, thinking about you. About you.”</p>
<p>“No.” </p>
<p>Harry hissed, “Yes. I told her. Before we found... Found you. This afternoon. And she...”</p>
<p>“I pretended. To be you. Fucking him.”</p>
<p>Harry reached out, his hands joining Ginny’s. “Before... and after, this... Just now, again, I did, fucked her tits, her pretending, and then I.... We pretended you were going down on her. Because we both think. Think... You’re beautiful, Luna.”</p>
<p>Whispering into Luna’s ear, her lips touching the lobe, her breath fanning Luna’s hair in a way that Ginny knew drove Harry wild, she said,  “We both got off, pretending to get to make love to you. To you.” She let her fingers trail down from beneath Harry’s, following the silk path downward, across the bellies of her breasts, along her ribs, to either side of her navel...</p>
<p>Luna shuddered, and her hand flew from Harry’s bollocks, stopping Ginny’s progress. </p>
<p>They all froze.</p>
<p>And Luna suddenly seemed to be freezing, in spite of Madam Malkin’s Warming Charms: her teeth chittered and her stomach trembled. “G-g-g...”</p>
<p>They waited.</p>
<p>Luna turned her face away from Ginny’s. Very, very quietly, through still-quivering jaws, she said. “I have... a p-p-present... that I should like to g-give you... if you....” The shivering overtook her. </p>
<p>Ginny embraced her from behind, and Harry wrapped his thin, strong arms around them both. Luna’s hand was still on his rod, but his voice dropped back down into a coital, cunt-quickening register. “Whatever you want to give us, Luna, we’d be honored to have.”</p>
<p>Luna gave what felt and sounded like a sob, but quickly took a deep breath that squeezed them all closer together. “I... May I give you m-my... my virginity?” Another spasm of shivering. “P-please?”</p>
<p>“We would love that,” Harry said, and leaned his face forward. Ginny thought he was going to kiss Luna—felt a wild twang of jealousy and randiness zip through her—but his lips found hers, and their heat banished all fear, all cold. He backed off again, his eyes on hers.</p>
<p>Ginny nodded, and Harry brushed those lovely thin lips of his against Luna’s softer, fuller ones.</p>
<p>Luna stopped breathing—it felt as if her heart had stopped as well—until Ginny whispered into her ear, “We would love to. It would be our pleasure.”</p>
<p>Luna moaned.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Conjunction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks to aberforths_rug  for her feedback, the support and the commiseration!</p><p>As I said to several of you, I didn't want to leave them hanging too long... ;-)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry and Luna kissed on, and Ginny felt another ridiculous shiver of jealousy flutter up inside of her.</p><p class="">Jealous? Why? This was her idea—or at least, partially hers. She nibbled on Luna’s ear, and let her hand trail down to where Luna’s fingers were still loosely curled around Harry’s cock. Looking her childish churlishness in the face, she wrapped her fingers around Luna’s so that they were tight against Harry’s flesh, and moved her friend’s hand down and then up again.</p><p class="">They both groaned, mouths muffling mingled delight.</p><p class="">Ginny smiled. Giving Luna’s ear a good, long lick, she whispered, “He likes it when you squeeze like that. He’s come twice already tonight—and he’s not a nineteen-year-old any more. No need to be timid.”</p><p class="">Following Ginny’s advice, Luna gave a long pull on his shaft, and then let loose a high-pitched sigh into Harry’s mouth; he answered it with a low groan.</p><p class="">"The bit from the head to the middle is the most sensitive. He likes that a lot."</p><p class="">"Hmm," answered Luna in Harry’s mouth, and followed Ginny's directions.</p><p class="">Feeling a bit more centered—if no more in control—Ginny let go of Luna’s hand, which continued to stroke Ginny’s husband steadily. Ginny’s fingertips found soft flesh—Luna’s inner thigh, she realized: smooth, soft. Fingers traveled at their own direction, five wanderers meandering towards a common goal with no sense of urgency. They reached a curtain of silk—Madam Malkin's finest—and, slipping beneath it, they found a thatch of hair, and Luna jumped, causing Harry to groan again.</p><p class="">Luna’s pubic curls were finer than Harry’s—finer, even, than Ginny’s own. “When we used to lie on your bed, nattering on about boys and penises and fucking,” Ginny whispered, “did you ever think of reaching over and diddling me?”</p><p class="">Luna shook her head, gasping as Harry nipped lightly at her throat.</p><p class="">“Nor me,” Ginny admitted, and found that she was truly sad to say this. “Why didn’t we? There we both were, randy as hell—why didn’t we help each other out?” She let her fingers slide down through that fine copse of hair to the warm, moist flesh below—labia open, as they had been during Luna’s long incarceration. Ginny’s index and middle fingers slid along the lengths of those wet, tight lips, and Luna threw her head back onto Ginny’s shoulder.</p><p class="">“D-didn’t kn-know girls could…”</p><p class="">Harry took advantage of the opening to nibble around the underside of Luna’s chin.</p><p class="">Luna arched, whimpering.</p><p class="">“I knew,” sighed Ginny, licking her way down Luna’s jugular as her husband ran his teeth along Luna’s Adam’s apple—each of them pulling at the choker as they passed it.. She leaned forward and they kissed, there beneath Luna’s chin, tongues dancing, as Ginny’s fingers stroked unselfconsciously up and down along the fine, slick ridges of flesh that spread beneath them.</p><p class="">It was her favorite way of playing with herself—had been since she first tried it. No doubt it’s what she was doing while she slept, if she was to believe Harry and Luna. Was it Loony’s? As Harry moved on, kissing his way down to Luna’s high clavicles, Ginny tried to remember. She hadn’t really felt comfortable <em>looking</em> at Luna while each of them played with herself. Circles, maybe? Ginny experimented, letting first one fingertip and then two swirl around the diamond-hard bump at the front.</p><p class="">Luna shuddered, a high sigh floating down into a low moan.</p><p class="">“That feel good?” Ginny asked, knowing the answer.</p><p class="">“Oh… yes. Yes, it feels quite nice.”</p><p class="">Loony. Even with Harry licking at the slope above her breasts and Ginny playing tarantellas on her clit, she was still Loony. It was wonderful. “Good.”</p><p class="">“Extremely nice. I—” Luna began, but interrupted herself with another healthy groan. Harry had clamped on to one of Luna’s nipples through the silk; he was probably tweaking the other, though Ginny couldn’t see. The gooseflesh that erupted along Luna’s throat tickled Ginny’s cheek, her lips.</p><p class="">"Told you he loved your breasts."</p><p class="">"Y-yes." Luna arched again as Harry switched nipples, and then went limp, beginning to slide off of Ginny's shoulder.</p><p class="">Continuing to stroke her friend, Ginny used the free arm to cradle Luna, until she was almost lying down across Ginny's lap. <em>Supine…</em></p><p class="">Harry began to kiss and lick his way down the bare trail between the two swaths of silk that trailed down Luna's white belly, and Luna pushed her tummy up, arching again and turning so that her face rolled toward Ginny and mouth opened. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, her lips latched on to Ginny's nipple, sending sparks of flame shooting from that spot to her clit and out to every extremity.</p><p class=""><em>Merlin</em>, thought Ginny, <em>Oh, Merlin, she's…</em></p><p class="">Luna's mouth pulled at Ginny's breast as if she were indeed seeking nourishment, and Ginny looked down to find huge, pale blue eyes open and staring up at her.</p><p class="">Then Harry kissed his way around Ginny's hand. That amazing mouth found Luna's lips and then began to dance with Ginny's fingers, and Luna gasped, her mouth loosening itself from Ginny. Luna fell back across Ginny's legs, transported.</p><p class="">Luna's eyes, though, remained focused on Ginny's—well, perhaps not focused, but were they ever?</p><p class="">Pulling her legs out, Ginny leaned down. Blonde eyebrows arched impossibly high until the disappeared from sight and Ginny's mouth caressed Luna's.</p><p class="">Such a different mouth—so much softer than Harry's, and warm. Sweet taste. <em>Sweet.</em></p><p class="">Ginny's breasts slid up along Luna's, and somehow that, the bump of her nipples against Luna's, the slide of soft flesh against her flesh, was the feeling that set her off—that told her what she was doing. She was shagging another woman. (<em>Shagging? Is this...?</em>) Making love to Luna.</p><p class="">Luna gasped into Ginny's mouth. The puff of air across her tongue, the hum of it sent a shiver through Ginny.</p><p class="">She and Harry were shagging Luna.</p><p class="">Luna, who even Ginny had been ready to give up as dead not six hours before.</p><p class="">She was shagging Luna and it felt….</p><p class="">Wonderful.</p><p class="">Ginny pushed up and gazed down: Luna's eyes were even more unfocused than usual. There were bite marks and a small, cupid's-bow bruise on the ivory flesh of the neck where Ginny and Harry had nibbled.</p><p class="">Ginny felt Harry's mouth working around her fingers. Felt Luna's clit stiffening and quivering. Watched as Luna's huge eyes flickered and crossed.</p><p class="">"I think," she said, "I think I want to taste you too."</p><p class="">"Hmm."</p><p class="">"Want me to?"</p><p class="">"Hmmm." It sounded like an assent to Ginny.</p><p class="">With another shiver and a grin, she leaned down and kissed a silk-clad nipple, glorying as it rose between her lips.</p><p class="">Ginny had fantasized about sleeping with other people. Everyone did. And if she thought about it, she'd even had a fantasy or two about being in a group—men and women, caressing her, fucking her. When she'd flown with the Harpies, everyone assumed that all of the girls were queer, but really there'd only been a few. And none of them had ever come on to her. But once or twice, after a victory on the road—in Hexenhavn or Puerto de las Brujas—they'd all gone out dancing, and who else was there to dance with? She wasn't going to dance with the fans—they all learned to keep that line very clear or end up on the back pages of <em>Witch Weekly</em> and out of a job. And dancing with Melissa Somes, say, who had amazing green eyes and could move on the dance floor as Ginny had always wished she could—as Harry, wonderful as he was, could never even attempt… There would come a moment when Melissa would open those eyes—green in a way that was totally unlike Harry's—and they would both stand there, on a knife edge, before they'd both start giggling and whirling around the floor in proper Fred-and-George fashion.</p><p class="">Had Ginny ever really thought of stepping over that line? Melissa, who during Ginny’s time on the team slept with three or four of the other players, a couple of whom Ginny had been certain were, if anything, straighter than she was. Melissa, who was always flying over after Ginny had scored and pointiing out the witch with the biggest pair of yabbos in the crowd. Or Arathusa, with her long, Keeper's fingers….</p><p class="">Not really. No. Any more than she'd considered reaching over when she was lying next to a naked Luna, as they rubbed themselves sore, groaning and giggling and sighing.</p><p class="">But the flesh beneath her lips now was flesh she hungered to taste. The groans of pleasure buzzing up from the belly beneath her tongue pleasured Ginny. She felt alive. She felt awake and wonderful raw as she hadn't felt…</p><p class="">Ginny withdrew her hand from Luna's clit and Luna's groan now was one of disappointment. Trailing a most finger over a silk-covered hip, she looked down at her husband, happily lapping away at Luna’s fanny. Ginny loved watching him do this—no surprise, since before now, she’d always been the one he was lapping at. But now she found that the sight itself was erotic: Harry nose bobbing, his eyes half-lidded. “Share?” she asked, the sound of the words low, so that she felt her chest rumbling against Luna’s belly.</p><p class="">Those lids flew open, the eyes beneathflashing brightly. His nose bobbed more as he nodded.</p><p class="">Determined not to think about what she was doing—determined simply to do it—Ginny leaned forward. <em>Kissing Harry</em>, she thought. <em>I'm going to kiss...</em></p><p class="">Only Harry had never grown a beard—couldn't, really—and so thethick curls of Luna's bush kept Ginny from pretending.</p><p class="">Her nose brushed against Harry's, and a rich, tart scent filled the nostrils, <em>scintillating</em>. A scent she had only ever smelled before at a distance, or on Harry’s face, or on his cock, eating him after they’d already fucked—not something they’d done much lately, but this evening, her cuntscent had been there faintly when she tasted him, and now—</p><p class="">And now, she reached out with her tongue, and intertwined it with his, two tongues dancing around Luna’s clit like eels mating around a particularly soft, sensitive rock. The taste was different—lighter than her own, and almost sweet, like Luna’s mouth.</p><p class="">“<em>Ginny</em>!” Luna lowed, as if the pleasure were too much; she twisted, grabbing on to Ginny’s calf, and Ginny wasn’t sure whether her friend was trying to pull her close or buck her off.</p><p class="">But the weight of Ginny’s chest and the promise of two tongues on Luna’s privates held her pelvis still, even as her head and arms turned and pulled.</p><p class="">Luna pulled Ginny’s leg close, Ginny’s toes cramming themselves into Luna’s mouth, and Luna let out a long, muffled scream</p><p class="">Harry’s right hand snaked up along Luna’s long belly, first brushing Ginny’s nipple and then trekking up onto Luna’s, where Ginny knew he would clamp down, gentle but firm, in counterpoint to his tongue’s ministrations. Usually he would use both, but...</p><p class="">But Ginny was here, swapping the taste of Luna’s excitement with him. No reason for her to go without though. Ginny’s left hand, which had been resting on Luna’s fluttering tummy slid up to play with the other breast—so that it shouldn’t feel lonely.</p><p class="">She found her other hand, which had been cupped beneath Luna’s bum, sliding up beneath Harry’s chin, the index finger extended. Harry’s tongue broke from the duet that they were performing long enough to wet the finger thoroughly before flicking back up against her own, and then the finger found the opening to Luna’s cunt and slid in.</p><p class="">Luna’s body became absolutely still, and for a moment Ginny was terrified that she’d hurt her friend, But then Ginny felt the hot, slick walls of Luna’s cunt clench around her finger and begin to spasm, and Luna bellowed so loudly that, even with a mouth full of Ginny’s foot, it seemed as if the sound would bring the old tower around them crashing down to the ground.</p><p class=""> </p><p class="">
  <span class="">: :</span>
</p><p class=""> </p><p class="">"Are you okay, Luna?" Harry’s fingers flew up to her pale, still throat, just below the sapphire choker.</p><p class="">Ginny stared down at Luna's face, which was as drained of color as it had been when they had found her, but slack, her enormous eyes rolled back in her head. "<em>Luna</em>?" Ginny began to reach for her wand, but Harry already had it, and had begun the wand movement for an <em>Enervate</em>.</p><p class="">“I see what you meant about leaving your body,” said Luna—somehow without moving a muscle. “That was very interesting.”</p><p class="">Ginny found that she had been holding her breath. In Luna-speak, apparently, <em>very interesting</em> could mean either <em>absolutely fucking fantastic </em>or <em>a near-death experience.</em></p><p class="">Harry brushed the hair out of Luna’s face. “You okay?”</p><p class="">“Oh, yes,” said Luna, eyes floating back more or less to the front of her head. “I’m doing quite nicely. I’ve never had someone else excite me to orgasm, so I suppose it caught me unprepared.”</p><p class="">“Just a bit,” snorted Ginny.</p><p class="">Harry chuckled, but his expression remained grave. “That... was probably a bit much. We probably shouldn’t—”</p><p class="">“Oh, please fuck me, Harry.” Luna reached out and grabbed Harry’s cock—grabbed it with authority, as Ginny had encouraged her to do earlier, which left Harry looking as if he’d been hit in the stomach with a bludger. “I can’t imagine whether fucking might be any more stimulating, but I am fairly certain that the sensation won’t do any lasting damage,” she sighed, and then cocked her head. “Though I am willing to chance it.”</p><p class="">Harry blinked, and Ginny giggled. They both looked at her—Luna’s gaze open, Harry’s astonished. She leaned forward to kiss each of them. Funny: she wasn’t even going to be participating in the main event, and yet her heart was beating wildly in her throat. “So, how do you two want to do this?”</p><p class="">Now Luna was the one who blinked. “Do?” She looked up at Harry.</p><p class="">He gave them his pained smile. “I... I don’t know, Luna. I mean, it’s not like I’ve done this before.” When Luna’s eyes widened astonishingly, he spluttered, “I mean, with someone who was, you know, like you. A virgin.”</p><p class="">“Oh.” The huge blue eyes swiveled from Harry to Ginny and back again. “Oh.”</p><p class="">“In fact,” he said, staring down at her hand on his knob, “I... I’ve never done this with anyone but Ginny.”</p><p class="">“Oh.” Luna’s long fingers released Harry, who let out a huff of either relief or disappointment. Those long fingers reached up to stroke Ginny’s cheek, though her gaze stayed on Ginny’s husband. “Oh.”</p><p class="">“I want to, to do this,” Harry said, still looking down. “I just don’t know...”</p><p class="">“No,” agreed Luna. Ginny wasn’t sure what she was agreeing with. Now Luna looked up at Ginny. “I want to do this too, rather a lot. I want to fuck Harry, very much. Only, it doesn’t seem right for him to fuck me, does it?”</p><p class="">After a moment of Luna looking thoughtfully sad and Harry looking stoic, Ginny couldn’t take it—of <em>course</em>, once again, she was the one to see the way through. “No problem.” Leaning forward, she slid onto Luna’s body, the moment when her breasts bobbled against Luna’s silk-encased ones once again sending a spark to her clit. She kissed Luna, who lay back, wide-eyed, as Ginny threw a leg across Luna’s waist. Looking back at Harry, she whispered, “Like to fuck me this way, don’t you, Harry?” She lifted her bottom up and wiggled it at him, like a matador waving a cape before a bull.</p><p class="">Harry’s face darkened and his mouth dropped open.</p><p class="">In point of fact, taking her on her hands and knees was his favorite way to fuck—not that he didn’t seem to like them all. She preferred to face him, but mostly because she’d found over the years that the front of her cunt was more sensitive than the back; if his cock where curved in the other direction, like Dean’s...</p><p class="">Ginny reached down between her legs—but instead of readying her own privates for Harry’s arrival, she lifted the nightie and stroked Luna’s. Luna stared up at her with an expression of absolute sensual abandon.</p><p class="">“Ginny,” Harry groaned. “Luna...”</p><p class="">“C’mon, baby,” sighed Ginny, still looking down into Luna’s misty gaze. “Fuck me.”</p><p class="">Harry’s hands skimmed lightly over Ginny’s bum. “Are... Are you on the Charm?”</p><p class="">“Uh-huh,” sighed Ginny and Luna in harmony.</p><p class="">“I...”</p><p class="">“No one’s ever fucked my cunt, Harry,” Ginny moaned. “Fuck me.” Ginny’s thumb circled Luna’s clit as one finger dipped back in to her tight hole.</p><p class="">“<em>Shit!”</em> When Harry began swearing, it was always a good sign. He slide up behind her, and Ginny felt Luna’s legs spread, welcoming him.</p><p class="">“Baby,” Ginny found herself saying—not knowing which of them she was talking to, realizing that it was to both of them. “It might... hurt a bit at first. Take your time, okay? Go slow. Breathe.”</p><p class="">“Always,” groaned Harry, “always wanted to be... your first.”</p><p class="">“Mmm,” agreed Luna, her groan becoming throatier as Ginny slid her finger further in.</p><p class="">Harry’s cock slid along Ginny’s wrist, insinuating itself up against Ginny’s own entrance, and for a moment, she almost gave in and pushed back, spearing herself on him. But she had had that opportunity often—once earlier that day. This was not her turn. She slid her finger out of Luna and grasped Harry’s rod by the root. “Breathe,” she said.</p><p class="">Luna was quivering—with anticipation, but also with fear, probably.</p><p class="">“Breathe,” Ginny repeated, and slid the tip of Harry’s cock along Luna’s slit, picking up some lubrication, but also giving the clit a nice introduction to its new playmate.</p><p class="">Luna let out a long, breathy sigh, and then gulped in a huge lungful as Ginny positioned the head of Harry’s cock against Luna’s cunt; her eyes squeezed shut.</p><p class="">“Wait,” said Harry, his fingers digging into Ginny’s haunches. He leaned forward, so that Luna’s raised thighs pressed, trembling, against Ginny’s bum and lower back. “Wait.”</p><p class="">He grabbed Ginny’s wand, which lay on the bed, and began mumbling what Ginny thought was a conjuration. Luna’s face began to glow even more warmly; blue eyes flickered back open. “Ooo!”</p><p class="">Ginny looked up. Harry had conjured a circle of candles, Levitated around them, bathing the bed and the bodies in it in a golden, tremulous light. <em>A circle of flame, to protect and contain...</em> He leaned forward and kissed the back of Ginny’s neck, even while reaching down with his wand hand and caressing Luna’s cheek. “I... want it to be the way you dreamed.”</p><p class="">Luna’s face expanded; Ginny had only seen that expression on her friend’s face once before: when Ginny had brought her out to the Forbidden Forest during their first week at Hogwarts and showed her that unicorns weren’t mythical creatures after all.</p><p class="">“We don’t have a bronze thingamee,” Ginny murmured.</p><p class="">Luna leaned up and whispered in Ginny’s ear, “You will by my calyx.” Then she deposited a gentle kiss in Ginny’s ear, leaned back, and closed her eyes again. Where it had been a grimace a moment before, however, now it was an expression of peace.</p><p class="">“Ready?” Ginny asked.</p><p class="">“Yes,” the other two said.</p><p class="">Ginny reached back between her legs again, past her own pubes and the silk curtain covering Luna’s. She grasped Harry’s cock and brought it back to Luna’s cunt. “Take in a deep breath,” she said, “and let it out.”</p><p class="">As they both exhaled, Ginny pulled Harry forward against the thin barrier guarding the entrance to Luna’s cunt; Luna began to tense again, and so—without considering—Ginny leaned down and sucked one of Luna’s glorious, tight, nightie-covered nipples <em>hard</em>.</p><p class="">Luna cried out, and Harry pressed against Ginny’s back. Luna gasped again, lifting her pelvis, trapping Ginny’s hand between it and Ginny’s own.</p><p class="">Ginny could feel three textures of pubic hair tickling her fingers. Could feel moisture. Luna let out a low, quick grunt, and Ginny added her teeth, gently...</p><p class="">Around her, Harry and Luna both shuddered.</p><p class="">Letting the nipple slip from between her lips, feeling the two hearts hammering against her cheek and her back, she whispered, “Shh... Shh...”</p><p class="">“Oh,” said Luna, her voice high and wispy. “Oh.”</p><p class="">“So... <em>tight</em>,” Harry hissed.</p><p class=""><em>Hasn’t borne your three little monsters, has she?</em> thought Ginny, but she said, “Feels nice.” It did, too: squeezed between the two of them...</p><p class="">“Mmm,” agreed her lovers, the hum of their voices warming Ginny front and back.</p><p class="">Luna pushed up again. “F-fuck...”</p><p class=""><br/>
Image by <span class="ljuser i-ljuser i-ljuser-type-P"><a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="https://harrys-girls.livejournal.com/profile"></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="https://harrys-girls.livejournal.com/"><b>harrys_girls</b></a></span><br/>
<br/>
Harry obliged, burying himself more deeply, and Luna let out a pant that sounded at first like a moan of pain, but turned into a giggle. “<em>Oh... OHhhee!</em>”</p><p class="">Ginny felt Harry’s chest buck against her chest, felt a puff of surprised laughter against her neck, and chuckled herself. “Okay?”</p><p class="">“Oh, yes, yes... Ohhee!Hurts a... bit, but... feels quite... <em>nice.</em>”</p><p class="">“Good,” said Ginny with a smile. “Nice is... good.”</p><p class="">Air cooled the small of Ginny’s back as Harry withdrew slightly, and gooseflesh erupted all over Luna’s chest, belly, the fronts of her thighs, tickling Ginny’s skin. Taking a deep breath, Ginny looked down at Luna. “Think it’s okay to go a little harder?”</p><p class="">Luna blinked and bit her lip, but then smiled and nodded.</p><p class="">Leaning forward again, Ginny kissed Luna; the sweet, full taste was growing more familiar, but the sensation still sizzled through Ginny’s veins. “Fuck me. No need to be timid.”</p><p class="">Harry growled, and his mouth latched onto the back of her neck. Luna hissed and moaned as that lovely penis she’d been admiring began to plunge and withdraw.</p><p class="">For some time, Ginny lay there between them, excited by their grunts of excitement, by the whisper of their flesh against hers, excited, even, by Luna’s occasional giggles. She tried to begin to play with Luna’s clit with the fingers that were still trapped between—(<em>among?</em>)—their pelvises, but Luna winced. Clearly too much. And so Ginny withdrew the hand and settled for kissing her friend and enjoying the feeling of Harry’s thrusts bouncing their jubblies together.</p><p class="">She hadn’t thought about breasts much before—not having much of her own to think about. But now she thought perhaps she saw boys’ fascinations with them a bit more clearly. They looked nice, and they definitely said <em>I’m a girl! Yoohoo!</em> But they felt... amazing. And Luna’s lips...</p><p class="">Then Harry’s hand snaked down between their bellies, and Ginny was about to tell him not to, that Luna didn’t want—</p><p class="">But his fingers found <em>her</em> clit, and suddenly, instead of being an observer, the medium through which they were fucking, she found herself a participant, and <em>OOO...</em></p><p class="">She arched up against her husband—how often had they fucked this way?—and his kisses on her neck grew harder, until they were nibbles, and then bites.</p><p class="">“Fuck, fuck, Ginny,” he groaned.</p><p class="">“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” she gasped, forgetting that, in fact, hers wasn’t the cunt he was plowing. Forgetting. Not caring.</p><p class="">She lost herself in the flow of flesh beneath and against her, and was shocked when a hungry mouth latched itself onto one of her dangling, bouncing nipples. “Shit!”</p><p class="">Luna tittered again against Ginny’s breast, sucking hard. <em>No need to be timid.</em></p><p class="">Harry’s free hand managed to flick Ginny’s other nipple before departing; Ginny was about to complain when she heard and felt a gasp against her other breast. Harry had clearly moved to Luna’s nipple, the good boy. He muttered into Ginny’s ear, his voice rising, “Shit. Shit. <em>Shit.</em>”</p><p class="">Luna suddenly dropped back, quivering, her eyes rolling back into her head once more.</p><p class="">“SHIT. <em>SHIT!”</em></p><p class="">Then Luna began to laugh—not the fluttery giggle from before, nor the airy titter Ginny remembered from when they were young, but a full, throaty guffaw. “OH! OH! HAAA! HEEE!” Luna’s legs, which had been bent at the knee, pressing against Ginny’s bum, suddenly flew up, clearly pulling Harry into her, because his weight suddenly doubled on atop Ginny, and she found herself squeezed between two coming lovers, one bellowing obscenities, the other laughing like a madwoman.</p><p class="">They collapsed, breathless, to the bed.</p><p class=""> </p><p class="">: :</p><p class=""> </p><p class="">Ginny didn’t remember falling asleep. As they’d all lain there, recovering from their exertions, as they’d climbed blindly together beneath the covers, as Harry and Luna fell quickly to snoring on either side of her, she’d found her mind bouncing among so many subjects—<em>What the hell do we think we’re doing? Did one of us Banish the candles? Of course Harry liked fucking Luna’s tight cunt, how could he not, but did he like hers </em><b><em>better</em></b><em>...? Is there blood all over...? Do I taste that amazing, or was it only because it was Harry too? Is that how threesomes work, and if so, shouldn’t being the one in the middle be more... </em><b><em>more</em></b><em>?</em></p><p class="">She must have drowsed off though—as her lovers had—because she came to to find herself in a habitual sleeping position: on her knees once more, her forehead against the mattress between Harry’s pillow and Luna’s, her bum in the air...</p><p class="">Her hand between her legs. Playing with herself. <em>They told me,</em> she thought.</p><p class="">But it wasn’t the friction of her fingers moving up and back over her clit that had woken her. No. A pair of fingers much longer and thinner than her own were pressing themselves against the mouth of her cunt. Another set, much larger even than the first, were teasing her sensitive bum. And two more hands-worth were sliding along her ribs. At the same, magical moment, two fingers delved deep into her fanny and another slid into her arse, while two hands found her aching, humming nipples and <em>squeezed...</em></p><p class="">As orgasm flooded through her, all that Ginny could think was, <em>Must be dreaming.</em></p><p class="">Panting, she flopped to the bed. Lips found either cheek. <em>“Love you</em>,” said a pair of voices, and then sleep embraced Ginny like Death itself, and all was dark.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Interjection</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings: Femmeslash. Interjections. ;-)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class=""><em>No!</em><br/><br/>Ginny felt Harry’s warmth slipping away from her, as she did so many mornings. Blinking to find only pre-dawn darkness, she murmured, as she always did, “Merlin. Don’t go.”</p>
<p class="">This morning didn’t feel the same, though. The darkness... was different. Not Grimmauld Place. And though Harry had slipped out of the bed, a pair of legs was still tangled in hers. Soft, smooth legs. And soft, round breasts, pressing against Ginny’s back and then retreating.</p>
<p class="">She heard Harry’s gruff morning voice. “Got to get in to see if the Unspeakables have traced any of the evidence we collected yesterday.”</p>
<p class="">“If you stay,” murmured a low, breathy voice from Ginny’s dreams, “we could fuck again.” Thin, long, warm fingers meandered along Ginny’s belly.</p>
<p class="">Harry was silent.</p>
<p class="">“How could you walk away from an offer like <em>that</em>, Potter?” Ginny asked, as images of all of the previous day’s events washed across her mind’s eye as if she’d been dumped into an over-full Pensieve. Sex. And Luna. And sex. And sex. “Two naked women in your bed?”</p>
<p class="">He grunted, a kind of chuckle. “Guess I’ll have to finish up quick so I can get back here.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny was about to pout and plead, but Luna beat her to it by simply saying, “Please.”</p>
<p class="">In the breathiest, sexiest voice imaginable. Right in Ginny’s ear.</p>
<p class="">Funny. Mornings, Ginny was usually more inclined to snuggle in bed for a bit than to go straight to shagging. Maybe after a piddle and a shower. But that sound...</p>
<p class="">“I’ll try,” said Harry, his voice low and strained in a way that let Ginny know that Luna’s plea had affected him in exactly the same way. He was briefly silhouetted in the doorway—instantly recognizable even though he was just a black smudge against the slightly less black rectangle—before he turned and his footsteps echoed up from Luna’s room, and he was gone.</p>
<p class="">“Mmm,” said Luna, buzzing Ginny’s earlobe.</p>
<p class="">“Mmm,” answered Ginny, and pulled Luna’s arm tight beneath her breasts. She felt her friend’s soft curves flowing against her bony spine and shoulders. Ginny sighed, warm and content. “You’re really here. Feels like a dream.”</p>
<p class="">“Hmm,” hummed Luna, and then murmured, “I’m not sure that I understand what you mean?”</p>
<p class="">“No?”</p>
<p class="">Luna’s long fingers cupped themselves around Ginny’s left breast. “Well, sometimes people say that when they mean that some something is quite lovely. And sometimes they mean that things are very odd. Is that what you meant?”</p>
<p class="">Ginny snorted, the sound seeming unnaturally loud in the dark. “A bit of both I suppose. Not <em>odd</em>... just.... I mean, last night was a first for me too, you know. I’d never had sex with another woman. Nor with two people at once, if it comes to that.”</p>
<p class="">“No.” It sounded as if Luna were smiling.</p>
<p class="">Ginny twisted in her friend’s embrace so that they were belly to belly, legs still intertwined, breasts overlapping. “Was it what you hoped it would be? Last night?”</p>
<p class="">Luna’s heartbeat seemed to slow as she considered the question. “No.”</p>
<p class="">“I...” A thickness filled Ginny’s middle. “Damn. I’m so sorry, Luna.”</p>
<p class="">“Sorry? Why?”</p>
<p class="">“Well, I wanted—we both did, Harry and I, we wanted your first time to be magical.”</p>
<p class="">“Oh.” Luna’s lips found Ginny’s, evaporating the weight. “It was that. It was magical in every sense that I can imagine.” Kissing Ginny again, Luna let her leg slide up between Ginny’s thighs until it rested against Ginny’s vulva, still sticky from the previous evening.</p>
<p class="">As Luna’s skin slid along her cunt, Ginny felt the labia open, moisten. Her breath caught. Could she really <em>still</em> be randy? <em>No Harry here, this morning. Just me and Luna. And I’m still....</em></p>
<p class="">“Yes, it was quite astonishing, and it felt very, very nice, but it wasn’t anything like what I had anticipated. And you were there, of course, which I think I would always have wanted if I had known it were possible.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny laughed.</p>
<p class="">The tip of Luna’s tongue painted a line along the edge of Ginny’s chin. “I think perhaps that my ideas about losing my virginity may have been colored by my... my father’s theories about the druids and the effects of letting the blood of a magical being at night.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny held her friend, pulling her close, waiting. When Luna remained silent, Ginny squeezed Luna’s bum—Madam Malkin’s handiwork still draping perfectly, though there were some stiff spots. “How are you feeling?”</p>
<p class="">“Actually,” Luna murmured, the fingertips on one hand tracing Ginny’s ribs while those on the other seemed to be trying to find the absolute edge of the areola on one of Ginny’s breasts, “I must say that I am finding that my sense of touch is quite enhanced.”</p>
<p class="">“I’m glad,” said Ginny with a shivering chuckle, “but what I meant was—” She’d meant many things: <em>Have you realized yet that your father’s dead? Are you still not sure what decade you’re in? Did having sex with Harry—with me—leave you as confused as it’s left me? </em>Instead she asked the most pertinent, banal question on her mind: “Are you sore?”</p>
<p class="">“A bit.” The fingers at Ginny’s breast began to count the bumps on that nipple, which grew and increased as the counting continued. “But it is a nice kind of sore.”</p>
<p class="">“I know what you mean.”</p>
<p class="">“You do? How nice.” Then Luna’s other hand brushed along the outside of the unattended breast and began to play with it.</p>
<p class=""><br/><br/>Then they kissed, snogging and touching and embracing there on the Lovegoods’ bed, and Ginny was fairly sure that they didn’t drift back to sleep, but when they finally came up for air, there was a faint dawn light in the room, washing Luna’s face pink. A pink ghost. “Ginny?’’</p>
<p class=""><em>Merlin. </em>“Hmm?”</p>
<p class="">Luna squeezed her legs together and rocked her pelvis against Ginny’s hip. “Do you and Harry often pretend to be other people while you are fucking?”</p>
<p class="">“Uh, no.” <em>Harry’s Luna voice as he lapped at my— </em>“Never before yesterday. It... In a way, it felt like we were Summoning you. Does that make sense?”</p>
<p class="">Luna nodded, her nose sliding along Ginny’s freckled bump. “I suppose, in way, that you were Summoning me. I am very glad that you did.” Ginny could just make out the smile crinkling the corners of those enormous, luminous eyes.</p>
<p class="">“Me too.” They kissed again, and Luna began undulating her pelvis against Ginny’s thigh again, which caused herleg to rock over Ginny’s cunt and back, and they began to press together... It reminded Ginny of dry humping—the way she had Harry and Dean before they’d fucked, even with Michael. But of course then they’d all been clothed, and being teen boys, they had come almost immediately, before Ginny had gotten more than a tingle of excitement. This... The texture of Luna’s skin was smoother than the silk that still encased her tits, that began to bounce gently against Ginny’s chest, and the feeling of Luna’s open cunt sliding along Ginny’s own leg was... Ginny couldn’t think of a word to describe it.</p>
<p class="">She stopped trying.</p>
<p class="">After a while—long enough that Ginny began to work up a sweat—Luna stopped. The change in rhythm actually sparked a small flutter of an orgasm in Ginny, and she blinked at the wide, open face in front of her.</p>
<p class="">Luna’s face, washed in the now golden light of morning, was mottled red. “I want to fuck you.”</p>
<p class="">“Please.”</p>
<p class="">“But just like last night, I don’t think that it would be right for you to fuck me.”</p>
<p class="">“<em>Luna,</em>” groaned Ginny.</p>
<p class="">Luna disengaged, and Ginny groaned again, reaching up to try to pull the lush form of her lover back to her. Luna, however, was already at the far side of the bed, retrieving Ginny’s wand. She tapped the edges of her stained but still sexier-than-hell nightie just above each nipple and over her crotch, and the silk slid down her white, smooth body, revealing a number of small marks that the previous night’s play had left. Ginny began to move forward, moved by an irrational impulse to kiss the marks away—realizing even as she did that she’d most likely only make the marks worse—but Luna held up a hand. “Lie down, please.”</p>
<p class="">Unsure where this was going, Ginny frowned, but followed Luna’s directions. Luna crawled up and straddled Ginny’s midsection. “Lift your head, please.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny did; Luna ran the nightie behind Ginny’s head and then across Ginny’s face, so that she couldn’t see. The scent of sex was overpowering. Ginny’s breath, which hadn’t slowed much, sped up again. “Luna?”</p>
<p class="">“I’m afraid that I sent her down to speak with my Aurors,” said an airy approximation of a low, gruff voice.</p>
<p class="">Ginny couldn’t help it—she laughed. Between the silliness and the irony and the terror that she was about to have sex with Luna—no Harry this time except in their imaginations—she laughed as no one but Luna had ever been able to make her do. “Oh, Harry,” she giggled. “I’m so glad you’re back!” And she reached up to pull Luna to her, but Luna stopped her hands.</p>
<p class="">“Hmm.” Luna sat there for a moment, holding on to Ginny’s wrists. “You seem to like playing with my breasts as much as I like playing with yours, but then this won’t work. Put your arms above your head, please.”</p>
<p class="">Again, Ginny complied—laughter still bubbling, so that her belly bounced against Luna’s round bottom—and Luna wound the rest of nightie around Ginny’s arms, tapping the ends and the place where it crossed in front of Ginny’s eyes so that she was effectively blinded and bound.</p>
<p class=""><em>Oh, yes,</em> Ginny thought, still laughing, though other impulses were fluttering through her middle as well, <em>yes, this is a game that Harry would like....</em></p>
<p class="">The first time that they’d tied each other up, it had been Ginny’s idea. It was when Albus was about one, and their sex lives had fallen into a routine—when they could even manage to find the energy. So one night, when Harry had come home after the boys were both asleep, Ginny had managed to blindfold herself and tie herself to their bed with their old school ties. When he’d actually come into the room at first he’d been shocked into silence, but then he’d come over and kissed—</p>
<p class="">Soft, smooth lips touched the inside of Ginny’s ankle.</p>
<p class="">“<em>Luna!”</em></p>
<p class="">“You’re not supposed to call me that,” she whispered up from Ginny’s calf. “You’re supposed to call me <em>Harry.</em>”</p>
<p class="">“Do I have to?”</p>
<p class="">“Yes.”</p>
<p class="">“Oh, fine,” Ginny huffed, an exasperated snort of a laugh. “Can’t believe you’re so randy so soon, <em>Harry</em>. After me and Luna fucked you silly last night.”</p>
<p class="">“Well,” answered the voice, almost entirely airy now that Ginny had forced Luna to think again, “you are very sexy. And so I want to fuck you very much.”</p>
<p class="">“Want to fuck you too,” Ginny grunted, trying to pull Luna up to her with her legs, wishing she could use her arms—but after all, a Quidditch player learned to control her broom without her hands.</p>
<p class="">Taking the hint, Luna began to climb up Ginny’s body.</p>
<p class="">“Didn’t you think Luna was fucking sexy last night, <em>Harry?</em> Didn’t you love how she tasted when we were licking her clit? Wasn’t it amazing how hard her nipples got when you tweaked them while you were fucking her tight, sweet pussy?”</p>
<p class="">Luna whimpered, and began rocking her pubic bone against Ginny’s clit; Ginny had to stifle a groan before she could continue. “You know what I want to do, <em>Harry</em>? While you’re fucking her, while you’re pushing that beautiful cock of yours into her, I want to lick her. I want to lick her clit while you’re fucking, I—”</p>
<p class="">Luna’s mouth clamped onto Ginny’s, and Ginny triumphed in the feeling of her girlfriend’s soft, undeniably female body pressing hard against her own.</p>
<p class="">One of Luna’s hands found Ginny’s breast while the other grabbed a bit spastically at Ginny’s bum, trying to pull their pelvises even more tightly together. Again, Ginny was reminded of grinding sessions she’d had as a teen. This was infinitely more satisfying: the ripple of Luna’s amazing tits against her own chest, the grind of Luna’s pubis was sending a flame through her body that she knew she had rarely experienced, and certainly never while fully clothed with a scrawny teenaged boy.</p>
<p class="">Yes, infinitely more satisfying—for Ginny, at least. Luna, her tongue frantically searching Ginny’s mouth, was moaning in frustration.</p>
<p class="">“Wait,” Ginny suggested. She began to move one of her legs beneath and then between Luna’s, so that each was rubbing herself against the other’s thigh.</p>
<p class="">Then Luna broke the kiss and the dry-humping and it was Ginny’s turn to feel frustrated. “I have an idea,” said Luna, and turned so that their bodies were at a right angle, their crotches pressed together. Luna began to rock her pelvis again—but this time their clits slid against each other. “<em>Shit</em>!” hissed Luna, and Ginny could only agree; quickly that flame exploded into fireworks, and it was Ginny’s turn to scream obscenities.</p>
<p class="">Orgasm screamed through her, leaving her panting, feeling empty, like a bell that’s done tolling.</p>
<p class="">
  <em>Bell...</em>
</p>
<p class="">Luna kept sliding her clit over Ginny’s. If anything her pace was quickening</p>
<p class="">“Luna?”</p>
<p class="">“Hmm?” She sounded as if she might be hyperventilating.</p>
<p class="">“Was that... the doorbell?”</p>
<p class="">“Door—?” whinged Luna.</p>
<p class="">A low, resonant tone rang from the ground floor.</p>
<p class="">“<em>Shit,” </em>Luna groaned again, “<em>just... just—</em>”</p>
<p class="">“Luna, love. We need to stop. We need to see who that is. Together. It might be an emergency. Or—” <em>It might be whoever gave you that egg.</em></p>
<p class="">“Oh,” said Luna, somehow both breathy and breathless. “Yes, that is true.” She slid away from Ginny and onto the floor; Ginny could hear her footsteps walking toward the stairs.</p>
<p class="">“Um... Loony?”</p>
<p class="">“Hmm?”</p>
<p class="">“Could you let me loose, please?”</p>
<p class="">“Oh,” said Luna, her voice even as usual, “of course.” Ginny felt a tap at either of her elbows and at the bridge of her nose. The nightie-<em>cum</em>-restraint fell limply away. “There.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny sat up, feeling another small tremor flutter through her. The room was brighter, a golden slash of sunlight running across the Lovegoods’ bedroom from the bathroom to the far wall. She rolled to the side of the bed where she’d left her pyjamas on the floor the night before. As she stood, about to put them on, she realized that Luna was once again heading toward the stairs.</p>
<p class="">“Luna?”</p>
<p class="">“Hmm?”</p>
<p class="">“Clothes.” Ginny grabbed Luna’s air-bleached yellow pyjama tops and tossed them to her.</p>
<p class="">Luna caught them, but blinked down.</p>
<p class="">“Don’t want just anyone seeing what Harry and I got to see, after all,” Ginny said, pulling on her own togs.</p>
<p class="">“Oh, yes, I suppose not,” Luna said, looking very much as if her mind were somewhere far away—tracking Snorkacks or—more likely—still thinking about the not-yet-finished session they’d just abandoned.</p>
<p class="">“I promise, I’ll help you finish.”</p>
<p class="">“Finish?” Luna’s face poked through the neck of the pyjamas, the eyes even more severely unfocussed than usual.</p>
<p class="">Grabbing her wand from the bed, Ginny hooked her arm through her playmate’s, kissed her, and pulled her toward the stairs. “Come. Orgasm”</p>
<p class="">“Oh. That would be very nice.”</p>
<p class="">“Good. I think so too.”</p>
<p class="">When they reached the front door—Luna having retrieved her own wand from her room on the way—the bell tolled again, loudly enough to make Ginny’s teeth vibrate. “Hell, that’s a racket!”</p>
<p class="">“The walls are all very thick, and Mummy’s workshop was below ground. Daddy didn’t want people to be able to sneak away.”</p>
<p class="">“Okay.” Wand at the ready, Ginny peered through the peephole. A familiar, gormless face peered back. Smiling in relief, Ginny opened the door. “Good morning, Albert.”</p>
<p class="">Al Jenkins, one of Harry’s junior Aurors, filled the doorway, poised to ring the doorbell again. “Oh. Mrs. Potter.” He seemed to be staring anywhere but at her face.</p>
<p class="">Luna pointed her wand at Jenkins’s chest. “What is the name of the sister of the woman with whom you had a date last night?”</p>
<p class="">Jenkins blinked at Luna, dumbfounded, and Ginny was about to say that those sorts of precautions weren’t needed any more when she realized that, in fact, Luna was right to question the Auror’s identity. The habits of the war felt as if they had belonged to another life.</p>
<p class="">“Bugger. Er, begging your pardon, miss. Ma’am.” Shaking his head as if to clear it, Jenkins stared down at his feet and muttered, “Um, guess you mean Mrs. Thomas. Parvati.”</p>
<p class="">Frowning slightly, Luna lowered her wand and stepped back to give the tall man room to enter.Once he was in, she favored him with her vaguest smile. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Aurur Jenkins. Padma was talking about you last night. I’m Luna Lovegood.”</p>
<p class="">“I, uh, met you. Or, um, saw you. Thanks.” Jenkins continued to fill up the doorway, staring downward as if he were trying to perform Legilimency on the threshold. “And Padma stood me up.”</p>
<p class="">“That’s too bad,” said Ginny, patting Al on a shoulder like a block of granite. He flinched. <em>Merlin, hope he couldn’t hear us...</em> “Come on in, we’ll start some tea.”</p>
<p class="">“Thanks, Mrs. P, but I’m on duty. N’koto and I are maintaining perimeter security.”</p>
<p class="">“Of course,” Ginny said, “thanks. So, what can we do for you?”</p>
<p class="">Nodding, looking slightly relieved, he finally looked up—though he still seemed to be studiously avoiding eye contact. “I’m sorry to have... um... woken you. But we stopped a couple of hundred owls. Most of ‘em are addressed to, erm, Miss Lovegood here, and most of ‘em are the kind of rubbish that usually shows up: scammers, requests for interviews—beginning your pardon, Mrs. P. A few of the rest are on the list Mr. P. left, and we wanted to know if it was okay to send those through.”</p>
<p class="">“Oh,” said Luna, “that would be lovely. Who would want to write us?”</p>
<p class="">“You’d be surprised, miss,” said Jenkins, blushing, and Ginny found herself wondering if the young Auror had ever seen quite so much of a naked girl before viewing Luna’s petrified form the previous day.</p>
<p class="">“Oy, Loony,” said Ginny, “you’ve got an owlery up above the top floor, right?”</p>
<p class="">Luna nodded.</p>
<p class="">“Why don’t you head up there and you can meet the owls as they come in. I’ll start breakfast.”</p>
<p class="">“Lovely,” said Luna, turning and skipping up the stairs.</p>
<p class="">Jenkins’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head; Ginny turned and saw that the pyjamas on Luna’s disappearing form barely covered her wonderful bum.</p>
<p class="">Ginny patted Jenkins’s shoulder again. “Thanks. And Padma had a bit of a family emergency last night. I’m sure she didn’t mean to stand you up.”</p>
<p class="">“No, ma’am,” sighed the young man. “She sent an owl to that effect, ma’am.”</p>
<p class="">“In any case, thanks so much for getting up so early to guard the house.”</p>
<p class="">“Just doing my duty ma’am,” he said, snapping off a crisp salute. Before he turned, however, he began to blush again and to smile. “Merlin. If it were up to me, Mrs. P., I’d’ve probably not had any sleep at all last night.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny laughed. <em>Perhaps he’s not quite so innocent after all.</em> “Well, perhaps if you owl Healer Patil, you can see about ruining tonight’s sleep!”</p>
<p class="">He grinned and dipped his head, turning even redder, and then marched across the Tower’s yard, back to where Jessamyn N’koto was evidently holding the owls.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Interrogative</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As they ate the chipolatas and eggs that Ginny had made, Ginny sorted through the mail while Luna worked her way through the morning <em>Prophet</em>—as always, reading from the back to the front. She made comments about everything that had changed—higher prices, the extension to Diagon Alley, the new Quodpot league (which Ginny pointed out that no one but a few expatriate Americans actually cared about), Anthony Goldstein speaking calmly and calmingly about the latest political crisis on the Continent.<br/>
<br/>
All the while, a twenty-year-old picture of Luna herself, taken just after the Battle of Hogwarts, smiled from the front page—her photographic self, which looked scarcely younger than the young woman behind the paper, seeming to be trying to read the article below her.  <b><em>LONG-LOST WAR HERO FOUND </em></b>screamed the banner over her head—Aphra hadn’t even changed the headline that Ginny had written. That <em>never</em> happened.<br/>
<br/>
Most of the correspondence was for Luna—friends from the DA, the Lovegoods’ family solicitors. Ginny had three letters: one from her editor demanding that the follow-up be on her desk by noon; one from Neville, and one from Teddy Lupin.<br/>
<br/>
“Luna?”<br/>
<br/>
“Hmm?” She was reading the finance section—not a subject that Luna had ever shown any interest in, but she seemed fascinated.<br/>
<br/>
“Padma’s going to be by to check on you around noon.” Her note had been folded inside of Neville’s; apparently, they’d had a debriefing of sorts already that morning.<br/>
<br/>
“Perhaps she could speak with Auror Jenkins then too.”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny smiled. “Perhaps she could. And Neville wants to know if it’s all right for him and Hannah to come over this evening.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh. Yes, I think that would be nice.” Luna flipped to the front page and blinked down at the picture of herself.<br/>
<br/>
“Sorry about the photo.” Ginny looked down at the postscript to Neville’s letter, in Lily’s neatest writing, which wasn’t very neat at all: <em>Please may we come to we want to meet <strike>Lun</strike> Mistress Lovegood so much may we please come please? — Lily Luna Potter</em><br/>
<br/>
“Hmm?” Luna glanced up from the paper. “Oh, the photograph is fine. It is odd to be reading about oneself in the newspaper when one hasn’t been attacked by Death Eaters.”<br/>
<br/>
A nervous laugh escaped Ginny’s throat. “Yeah. I guess. I wrote that last night, before... Before you’d been revived.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes,” said Luna and smiled. “You always did write well, if rather to the point. And I think it is probably just as well that you cut out the bit about my yabbos.”<br/>
<br/>
“Right. Probably.” Ginny found that it was even harder after twenty years to tell when Luna was joking. “Listen, there’s two more things. Lily and the boys... Our children would like to come down with Neville. They want to meet you. Desperately.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh,” blinked Luna. “Of course. I should love to meet them.”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny nodded, not sure why she felt suddenly jealous of her time with Luna. Well, it would be wonderful to see Lilu, Jamie, and Al. “And the last: the new Care for Magical Creatures professor really wants to meet you. Addie’s a friend of Teddy’s.”<br/>
<br/>
“Teddy?” Luna’s eyebrows screwed up.<br/>
<br/>
“Teddy Lupin?”<br/>
<br/>
“Teddy...?” Luna blinked rapidly, and Ginny realized that, to Luna, Teddy was still a toddler, bouncing off of walls and changing his hair color to match that of every person he met. “Oh. Oh.”<br/>
<br/>
“Er, yeah.”<br/>
<br/>
“He... He is older than I, now.”<br/>
<br/>
“Well...” Ginny considered this. It gave her the beginnings of a headache. “I suppose it depends on how you look at it. But, yeah. He and Bill and Fleur’s Victoire have just got engaged.”<br/>
<br/>
“<em>Victoire</em>?” Luna’s eyes enlarged alarmingly.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes.” Ginny let her friend absorb all of that. “Anyway, Addie, Hagrid’s successor—she’s a good friend of theirs. And apparently she’s quite anxious to meet you. And Teddy remembers you quite clearly and would love to see you again.”<br/>
<br/>
“I see.” Luna’s eyes remained huge and her complexion pallid.<br/>
<br/>
“I can tell them you need time—”<br/>
<br/>
“No, I should love to see them,” said Luna. Her tone was calm and airy as usual, but her face still bore signs of shock. “I think perhaps that would make all of this seems a little more real.”<br/>
<br/>
“More than seeing me and Harry gone old and fat?” joked Ginny, wondering where the bitterness was coming from.<br/>
<br/>
“You are neither old nor fat.” Now Luna began to smile. “You are quite beautiful. It is as if you were the fulfillment of everything that you had always promised to become.”<br/>
<br/>
“Ta,” said Ginny, feeling warmth flowing into her cheeks and to her crotch.<br/>
<br/>
“And I believe that I am qualified to judge, since I have seen all of each of you that there is to see.”<br/>
<br/>
Still blushing, Ginny laughed. “True.”<br/>
<br/>
“Fucking seems to have the most remarkable way of making you feel very present and at the same time to make the world seem very far away. Has that been your experience?”<br/>
<br/>
“I suppose.”<br/>
<br/>
“Hmm. Perhaps it is just my inexperience."<br/>
<br/>
Ginny reached across the table and grasped the long, white fingers of her friend and lover. "Luna. Love. I promise you, Harry and I are just as gobsmacked by what happened last night as you are. Neither of us has ever done anything like that. It was amazing."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh?" Luna sounded vaguely distracted as usual, but her wide eyes brightened, and Ginny could feel answering tears in her own. <em>Bugger</em>. "How nice."<br/>
<br/>
"'Nice' doesn't even begin to describe it."<br/>
<br/>
At that, Luna smiled. "Would 'fucking fantastic' come closer?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, Luna." Ginny found herself grinning through tears. <em>Fucking fantastic fucking…. </em>Pulled like iron shavings to a loadstone, Ginny leaned across the letters, across the forgotten <em>Prophet</em>, and kissed Luna, kissed her hard, and deep, feeling the love, gratitude, and desire growing as it passed back and forth between them.<br/>
<br/>
Just at the point where the flame had almost consumed Ginny again, Luna pulled back.<br/>
<br/>
Ginny groaned, grabbing at the retreating pajama tops.<br/>
<br/>
The object of her desire, however, took a step back, the habitual stoned-looking smile back on her insufferable face — though not without red blossoms of passion spreading across the pale skin, it gratified Ginny to notice. "Ginny?"<br/>
<br/>
Ginny grunted, squeezing her thighs together, feeling as if she finally understood the pained look on her boyfriends' faces when she'd told them it was time to stop.<br/>
<br/>
"You promised to help me finish what we started upstairs this morning."<br/>
<br/>
The sound that welled up from Ginny's throat this time had to be more properly classified as a growl.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," said Luna, her smile expanding, "I think that we should answer the mail quickly and I can help you write an update to that article."<br/>
<br/>
Now Ginny's groan was one of disappointment. "Luna—"<br/>
<br/>
"And then, what I should like very much… that is, if you would like to…?" Luna looked down, her expression bashful, incredible as that was to consider.<br/>
<br/>
"<em>Luna.</em>"<br/>
<br/>
She looked back up, eyebrows raised hopefully. "I should like it if you tied me up to my bed and if… <em>Harry</em> were to go down to me."<br/>
<br/>
"Hnh." Ginny looked down at the pile of paper and parchment that they'd crumpled in their enthusiasm. "Okay."<br/>
<br/>
"So, whom should we write first," Luna asked brightly as she sat once more, her still-erect nipples seeming to call to Ginny from across the table, "Neville and your children? I am very much looking forward to meeting your children."<br/>
<br/>
"Hnh."<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
: :<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Once the correspondence had all been taken care of, and Luna had helped Ginny write the article — and Ginny noted what a pleasure it was to write with Luna, for all that both of them were desperate to get it done as quickly as possible — Ginny ran up to the owlery at the top of the Tower and sent all of those words off with the birds and out of her mind. She locked the door to the roof and fairly sprinted down the stairs to Luna’s bedroom, her mind full of images from the previous night, images from that morning, images from their girlhood, lying side-by-side on Luna's bed, each pleasuring herself, but—<br/>
<br/>
The sight of Luna bound naked and blindfolded on that bed swept thoughts of childhood far away. Luna’s was not a girl’s body any more, not by any stretch of even Luna’s prodigious imagination. Hers was a woman’s body, and it inspired feelings in Ginny that she couldn’t put a name to — except that it was soft and warm and electric, like the feeling of their breasts bouncing together or their cunts.<br/>
<br/>
“Hello, Harry,” said Luna. “I asked Ginny if you would get down to me. Would you—?”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny’s mouth found Luna’s sex before she could ask any further, striking Luna, for once, speechless.<br/>
<br/>
The taste of Luna’s cunt, the smooth wetness of it, Luna’s voice, high and airy, the scent of her arousal, the sight of those gorgeous yabbos quivering — Ginny wanted this. <em>SHE </em>wanted it. She wanted to give this to Luna, and to receive it. She felt greedy and gratified to deliver such pleasure to this amazing, beautiful, astonishing woman. And so as Luna reached and tumbled over the pinnacle and screamed, “GINNY!” it pleased her far more than she could comprehend.<br/>
<br/>
She crawled up Luna’s still-trembling body, felt the now-familiar, always astonishing shock of their breasts flowing over each other, and found Luna’s mouth searching blindly for hers.<br/>
<br/>
“Luna,” Ginny sobbed, body pressing against her lover’s even as tears made her whole world wet, “want to fuck you, love you so much, want to fuck you, me, you, not Harry, just—”<br/>
<br/>
Luna answered by throwing her legs over Ginny’s arse and squeezing Ginny as if trying to erase any border between them.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
: :<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
Afterward, after they had made love, and after Ginny had finally released Luna from her bonds, they lay tangled in each other like skeins of thread on Luna’s bed.<br/>
<br/>
Luna hadn’t laughed when she’d come. She hadn’t even giggled. She’d just screamed Ginny’s name again, and howled.<br/>
<br/>
Ginny could feel their pulses slowing in tandem, could feel each of them catching her breath.<br/>
<br/>
“I love you, too,” Luna whispered, her face slick with sweat and tears.<br/>
<br/>
When the doorbell tolled once more, Ginny wanted to scream at whoever it was to go away, but Luna was the sensible one this time: “It might be Harry.”<br/>
<br/>
And so, unsteadily, they both got up and put on clothing that reeked of sex nearly as much as they did. “Stay here,” Ginny said, remembering that her job was to protect Luna, to keep Luna safe.<br/>
<br/>
“All right,” answered the blonde.<br/>
<br/>
As Ginny walked away, however, she could feel a thread pulling taut between them, and she knew then that something had changed. Stumbling down the stairs, legs rubbery, she felt as if she had been the one to wake into a strange new world. And she wondered how she could explain this to Harry.<br/>
<br/>
It was not Harry at the door, however; it was Padma, coming to check on Luna as she’d said she would. Ginny felt a sense of guilty relief that it wasn’t her husband — she had so much to digest just now before she could even begin to talk to the man she loved about it.<br/>
<br/>
So bewildering. All this love.<br/>
<br/>
Shaking her head, Ginny invited Padma up the stairs. “How’s Parvati and Dean?” she whispered.<br/>
<br/>
“Like you’d expect.” Padma shrugged. “I knew I’d ignite a shitstorm, telling them, but I knew I needed to be the one to let them know.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah. Still. Ouch.”<br/>
<br/>
“Tell me about it. ‘Vati all certain that Dean would leave her. Dean totally flogging himself because ‘Vati actually thought he’d do that, and because he’d given up on Luna, and because someone other than Parvati could make him feel this way. I was there until five this morning, and they were still veering between yelling at themselves and yelling at each other.” Padma’s face, which was uncharacteristically somber, lightened into a smirk. “Finally told them not to commit murder or suicide without consulting me first, but I was going to bed. That shut them up long enough to get me out of the flat.”<br/>
<br/>
“Dean…?” whispered Ginny, and Padma winced, which was all of the answer that Ginny needed. As they began to ascend the stairs to the second floor, Ginny could see her own face on the ceiling, framed by the stairwell. “Well,” she said, trying to change the mood, “I told Jenkins you’d had a family emergency, and he didn’t seem to mind.”<br/>
<br/>
That brought a broader smirk to Padma’s face. “Yeah. I offered to give him a blowjob just now by way of apology, but he got all flustered and told me he was on duty.”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny laughed.<br/>
<br/>
“Mostly,” continued Padma with her own chuckle, “I did it to see him go all red. Boy that big blushing, that’s quite a sight, believe me.”<br/>
<br/>
“Hello, Padma,” said Luna, leaning demurely against the headboard she’d been thrashing against not fifteen minutes before. “It is lovely to see you again.”<br/>
<br/>
“You, too, sweetheart,” said Padma, sitting on the bed.<br/>
<br/>
Ginny was very conscious that the whole room was full of the smell of their fucking—wasn’t sure that the sounds of their cries weren’t still echoing around the stone walls of the Tower.<br/>
<br/>
“I just need to give you a quick follow-up physical,” Padma said. She gave Ginny a significant glance. “Ginny, would you mind—?”<br/>
<br/>
It was the same routine as when the boys had cursed themselves. Ginny nodded. “I’ll give you some privacy. Shall I make a fresh pot of tea?”<br/>
<br/>
“That would be lovely,” said Padma, while Luna merely smiled as if the sun had taken up residence in her belly.<br/>
<br/>
As Ginny walked down the stairs, she forced herself to look at what she had been avoiding all morning: Harry.<br/>
<br/>
She loved Harry. She had loved him for all of her adult life. Since she was ten, for Merlin’s sake. They had a rich, mostly wonderful life together. They had three mostly wonderful children. He still made her happy — most of the time. The huge majority of the time. As yesterday had proved, he was still more than capable of pleasing her, in bed or out.<br/>
<br/>
He was Harry. He loved her and she loved him.<br/>
<br/>
But Luna….<br/>
<br/>
What had come over Ginny? She hadn’t felt so carried away in bed since… Since forever. At least it seemed so now. And it wasn’t just the sex… But Merlin. The sex.<br/>
<br/>
Ginny was blindly pouring the boiling water into the tea, her mind anywhere but in that kitchen when Padma came down the stairs. Blinking away the jumble of thoughts, she covered the teapot and turned. “So, clean bill of health?”<br/>
<br/>
Padma was looking at the floor, her mouth a straight line. “Luna is… physically fit.”<br/>
<br/>
“That’s for sure,” Ginny said, attempting a joke.<br/>
<br/>
Padma, however, didn’t smile.<br/>
<br/>
“Padma?” Anxiety began to flood into Ginny’s chest.<br/>
<br/>
“Luna’s fine.” Taking a deep breath, Padma squared her shoulders, but her eyes still didn’t meet Ginny’s. “Ginny, I have a couple of things I need to ask, okay?”<br/>
<br/>
Though the fear was no longer blossoming, it was still there, cold now, and heavy. “Sure. Padma?”<br/>
<br/>
“You’ve… You stayed here last night, didn’t you?”<br/>
<br/>
“Of course. Harry and I. What’s going on? You’re frightening me.”<br/>
<br/>
Now Padma looked up, a note of apology leavening her somber expression. “You didn’t leave at all, did you? You slept here?”<br/>
<br/>
The image of the previous night, of the three of them on Luna’s parents’ bed, of waking to find Harry’s finger pressing into her bum while Luna’s searched Ginny’s cunt… “Uh, yeah.”<br/>
<br/>
“And… Harry. Did he stay here last night too?” Padma looked as if the question cost her terribly.<br/>
<br/>
“What? Well, yeah, both of us. We stayed up in the room on the top floor.”<br/>
<br/>
“And did Harry… Did you leave the two of them alone at all, Harry and Luna?”<br/>
<br/>
“<em>What?</em>” No, no, Ginny hadn’t left Luna’s side except after she’d gone to bed in her own room—before she interrupted Harry and Ginny and— “No.”<br/>
<br/>
“No? Ginny, are you sure?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, Padma. I was with Luna all last night, and Harry never left the bed till he left for the Ministry just before dawn. What—?”<br/>
<br/>
Padma came closer. “Ginny, I…. Ginny, when I examined Luna yesterday, she was… <em>virgo intacta.</em>”<br/>
<br/>
Comprehension dawned. Padma thought that <em>Harry—? </em>“Oh. Oh, Merlin.”<br/>
<br/>
“I’m so sorry, Ginny. I… I want to <em>kill</em> Harry, really.”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny fought to hold down the laughter that was fighting its way up her throat. <em>Of course Padma would notice. </em>“Padma. It wasn’t Harry, wasn’t just Harry. It was both of us.”<br/>
<br/>
“<em>What?</em>” Now it was Padma’s turn to stare incredulously.<br/>
<br/>
“It…” It suddenly occurred to Ginny that Padma would understand, Padma who had slept with men and with women, and probably with both, and maybe she could help Ginny understand. “It was the three of us, and it—”<br/>
<br/>
“<em>Ginny.</em>” Padma’s eyes pierced Ginny. “Do you have any idea…? That young woman is in an <em>incredibly </em>vulnerable state! I can’t believe… the two of you, Harry an <em>Auror</em>, for Merlin’s sake! <em>How</em> can you take advantage of <em>that poor girl’s</em>—?”<br/>
<br/>
“Padma, I swear,” Ginny gasped, guilt and shame replacing fear in her chest, “we wouldn’t, I—”<br/>
<br/>
“It wasn’t like that,” said a calm, airy voice from the stairs, and both Ginny and Padma spun to face it.<br/>
<br/>
Luna was standing there, utterly naked but for the sapphire choker at her throat. Her skin, which had been flawless when they had revived her the day before, was marked with small bruises, each of which brought another clear memory of shameful ecstasy to Ginny’s tortured mind. Of course Padma had noticed.<br/>
<br/>
“Luna,” Padma said, once again looking at the floor. “You know that you’re in a difficult—”<br/>
<br/>
“Yesterday,” Luna said, as forcefully as she ever said anything, “my yesterday, that is, yesterday twenty years gone by, Dean had promised to come and finally to take my virginity. To fuck me. I had wanted it so much, for so long, you see, and so when I woke to discover that Dean… was no longer available, that, I will admit, left me feeling rather unsettled. And then I went up to Harry and Ginny’s room after they had thought I’d gone to sleep, I went up and they… They were fucking, and it…” Luna flushed, sending a <em>frisson</em> through Ginny. “I asked them to. To take my virginity. It was very nice.”<br/>
<br/>
<em>Very nice. Very interesting.</em> Indeed.<br/>
<br/>
Padma shook her head. “Luna—”<br/>
<br/>
“They did not take advantage of me, Padma. If anything, I took advantage of them. Harry had never had sex with anyone but Ginny. Ginny had never had sex with a woman. They gave me what I needed because they care for me.”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny rasped, “We love you, Loony.”<br/>
<br/>
Luna smiled, a crescent moon of a smile this time. “And I love you both too, Ginny. But Padma, if anything has helped me join the present, <em>this </em>present, it was their gift to me. They have not abused me. Not at all.”<br/>
<br/>
Blinking, Padma looked from Luna to Ginny and back. “Bloody hell.” Then a very Padma-like grin warmed her face, and she laughed. “Damn, Luna. One hell of a way to pop your cherry.”<br/>
<br/>
“Cherry?” Luna’s wide forehead furrowed.<br/>
<br/>
“Lose your virginity,” mumbled Ginny, feeling drained.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh. Yes,” Luna said, face relaxed again. “I was very fortunate.”<br/>
<br/>
Now Padma laughed. “No kidding. Lucky Luna!” She turned and gave Ginny a hug and whispered into her ear, “Lucky Ginny too!”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny nodded, unable to speak, and returned Padma’s hug. Her focus, however, was on Luna, who stood unselfconsciously on the stairs, naked, hair tangled, looking like a sex dream, a love goddess.<br/>
<br/>
Stepping back, Padma held Ginny by the shoulders. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I just assumed that Harry had—”<br/>
<br/>
“Harry wouldn’t.”<br/>
<br/>
“No, I know, I think that’s why I was so angry, it just didn’t seem like him at all. I guess he’s still a bit of a hero to me.”<br/>
<br/>
“Me too,” Ginny admitted with a laugh of relief. “Even if he does leave his dirty robes on the floor.”<br/>
<br/>
“I never thought of him as a hero,” mused Luna. “He was too nice, and he wore glasses.”<br/>
<br/>
Both Padma and Ginny laughed at that. Together they walked to the foot of the stairs. Ginny wondered if Padma was as lost as Ginny in the rise and fall of Luna’s breasts, which were right at eye level. Ginny found herself cataloging the love bites, trying to guess by the size and shape which she herself had given Luna, and which were Harry’s.<br/>
<br/>
Padma laughed again. “Yeah. Lucky Luna. Well, my fortunate friend, I pronounce you fully healthy. If you notice anything strange — well, stranger than usual — don’t hesitate to Floo me. I know I’m going to be writing you up for <em>The Healer</em>, if that’s okay.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, of course. I should very interested to see the article. Though perhaps you shouldn’t include the sex.”<br/>
<br/>
“Probably not,” both Ginny and Padma agreed.<br/>
<br/>
Luna considered this, and then nodded. “I’m going back up to bed, Ginny.” She turned and walked back upstairs.<br/>
<br/>
Like Ginny, Padma was speechless at the sight. When the pale, round bum had disappeared, Padma shook her head again and turned back to Ginny. “Lucky Ginny. No fucking kidding. And here I thought you and Harry weren’t the sharing type.”<br/>
<br/>
“Believe me,” Ginny sighed, “this is as much of a shock to us as it is to you.” The two women chuckled together. “Padma, please, I know I don’t need to say it, but please, don’t talk to anyone about this. Not even Harry. <em>Especially</em> Harry. He’d be mortified.”<br/>
<br/>
“Ginny, Ginny, I’m a Healer. Keeping people’s secrets is part of my job.” She leaned forward and kissed Ginny on the cheek. “This secret will be keeping me warm in bed for quite a while, though. Wow.”<br/>
<br/>
As Padma made to leave, Ginny felt a blush sweep over her, and didn’t even bother to try to hide it.<br/>
<br/>
Turning at the front door, Padma winked. “I think I’m going to go see if I can get Al Jenkins to turn that color. It’s dead sexy.” And with that, she was gone.<br/>
<br/>
What had she been thinking? Because Ginny knew that the previous night had been <em>her </em>idea—or at  least, she had been the one to voice what they were all thinking and to make it real. <em>Had</em> she taken advantage of her lovely, lonely friend, lost in time as Luna was so often lost in space? Would Harry be able to handle the qualms that Ginny was sure he would be suffering, the silly boy? And she and Luna, they had made love, and it had been <em>amazing</em>, but how would Harry…?<br/>
<br/>
All thought was banished from her head, however, when she reached the second floor.<br/>
<br/>
Luna was on the bed, running Ginny’s wand over her open cunt lips and circling the glistening clitoris that stood out insistently from the lips and Luna’s blonde thatch. “I was thinking that the first time that I touched you sexually, I only gave you one lick. I should very much like to taste you some more if you would like that.”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny’s turmoil notwithstanding, her body was very certain that it <em>would</em> like that, Ta very much indeed. Fingers trembling inexplicably, she threw off the clothing that she’d spent far more time out of than in over the past eighteen hours, and joined Luna on the bed, watching a unicorn on the bedspread gallop around Luna’s bottom, disappearing at one cheek only to reappear momentarily at the other. Ginny lay down beside her lover and kissed that cheek still lost in its marble whiteness, knowing that it would redden again soon enough. Luna leaned forward and, without preliminary licked at Ginny’s privates.<br/>
<br/>
Last night, that long tongue had skyrocketed Ginny straight to orgasm. This time it merely sent a geyser of sweet heat up her spine. How many times had she come in the last day? Ginny tried to count and got lost somewhere around six or seven or… Well, it didn’t really matter. A lot. And yet her body was ramping up to take the dive once more. Amazing.<br/>
<br/>
To keep herself from getting totally lost in the sensation too soon, she began running her hands over Luna’s bum, her legs, her fanny. When the lips there flowered open again, Ginny scooted underneath and between Luna’s thighs, pulling that sweet cunt down to her mouth.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh!” sighed Luna into Ginny’s own cunt. “Can we do this?”<br/>
<br/>
“We can do,” gasped Ginny, “whatever we bloody well want.”<br/>
<br/>
Luna gave a squeak as Ginny sucked Luna’s clit into her mouth. “Oh.”<br/>
<br/>
“‘S called sixty-nine.”<br/>
<br/>
“Huh.” Luna shivered. “Numerolo… Huh.”<br/>
<br/>
“‘Cause of how the numbers look together.”<br/>
<br/>
“Huh.”<br/>
<br/>
Ginny gave herself over to the closed circuit of pleasure that they were building between them. Trying not to think about how much Harry enjoyed this, wondering if perhaps she could eat him while he ate Luna while she ate—<br/>
<br/>
Luna’s mouth detached itself from between Ginny’s legs, leaving a cool ache. “Hello, Harry,” said Luna. “Is something wrong?”<br/>
<br/>
Harry stood at the top of the stairwell. His cock was in his hand, but his face was dark and full of storm as Ginny had not seen it since the morning of Tom Riddle’s death.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Subjunctive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry scowled at Ginny, at Luna, where the two had tangled themselves head-to-pelvis on Luna’s bed. But his cock was hard in his hand. “I don’t know, Luna. <em>Is</em> something the matter?” He said it to Luna, but he was staring at Ginny.</p>
<p>“No, Harry,” Ginny said. “Nothing at all.”</p>
<p>“Well,” sighed Luna, her breath puffing across Ginny’s labia and making Ginny shiver, “you did say you would come back soon, so we’ve been keeping busy.”</p>
<p>“Is that so?” Harry smiled, though his eyes remained dark.</p>
<p>“Uh-huh,” Ginny said, reaching out over Luna’s leg and grabbing her husband’s erection, hand and all, and pulling him toward her. “Everything’s just fine.”</p>
<p>And before he could ask anything else, she pulled him into her mouth.</p>
<p>Oral sex had always been a favorite part of Ginny and Harry’s play together, even in recent years when play had become a bit of a lost art. Each loved using the tongue, the lips, the teeth to pleasure the other. Giving and receiving.</p>
<p>Ginny loved the closed circuit of sixty-nine, loved how all-encompassing it was. Harry, however, had always found it difficult to concentrate on doing <em>anything</em> while he was being eaten, and so they hadn’t done that in years.</p>
<p>Now, however, Luna brought her mouth back to Ginny’s cunt and began to explore it, sending flame up through Ginny’s body, and for the first time she had some sense of what Harry meant. The thick pressure of his cock spreading her mouth — usually something that Ginny enjoyed — seemed almost <em>too</em> much on top of Luna’s lapping.</p>
<p>She pulled her mouth off of that familiar cock, but continued to stroke it even as she looked up at her husband, who was staring down at her. In the diffuse afternoon light of Luna’s room, his glasses were all but opaque. Kissing the glistening tip of his cock — fighting to keep clarity as Luna blew lightly on Ginny’s pussy lips — she whispered huskily, “Was… Unh… Was telling Luna I wanted to… Lick you both while you fucked her.”</p>
<p>The glasses were just as unreadable, but Harry shivered.</p>
<p>Ginny ran her fingers over Luna’s open cunt lips. Amazing to think that she’d been squeamish about doing that just a day before. “Loony?”</p>
<p>“Hmm?” Luna hummed against Ginny’s clit.</p>
<p>“Hnh. Um. You ready for your second fuck, sweetie, or are you still sore?”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Luna disengaged from Ginny’s pussy, her hair flowing over Ginny’s thighs and belly. “No, I think I should rather like Harry to fuck me, if he wouldn’t mind.” Then she went back to licking.</p>
<p>Smiling, Ginny peered up at her husband. “Would you mind, dear? Fucking Luna’s tight, sweet pussy while I nibble on you both?” With the hand that had been stroking Harry’s cock, she pulled him toward that very tight, very sweet pussy.</p>
<p>“Wait,” he grunted — she was shocked that he’d resisted, and began to fall back into panic, but he simply stepped back and dropped his trousers and his pants to the floor. His shirt and his robes still on, he stepped back to kneel on the bed, and allowed Ginny once more to guide him into Luna’s waiting cunt.</p>
<p>It was astonishing to watch that oh-so-familiar erection approach that now-very-familiar cunt, to watch it split the fine lips. Fascinating to see that amazing cock press into that wonderful cave. Exhilarating to hear both of her lovers hiss and then groan.</p>
<p>“I like… this direction… too,” sighed Luna, panting into Ginny’s crotch.</p>
<p>“Me… <em>Oh, FUCK!</em> Me too,” said Harry, pressing further in. “Not too… <em>hard</em>, Luna?”</p>
<p>“No,” Luna said after a moment of consideration. “I’m actually finding this rather easier than last night.”</p>
<p>Lying beneath them, Ginny found herself chuckling. These two were nothing in bed if not entertaining. <em>And Merlin, </em>she thought, <em>are they ever entertaining!</em> Leaning up, she gave a long lick that ran from Luna’s clit, along the base of Harry’s thrusting cock, and onto his balls, which were hanging loose.</p>
<p><em>“FUCK!”</em> groaned her lovers in unison — ethereal Luna and taciturn Harry — making Ginny grin to herself.</p>
<p>“Like that, do you?” she sighed, and licked them again, evoking more swearing. Harry, who had started out with such restraint, was now pounding into Luna, his balls sliding along Ginny’s forehead. Though Luna’s mouth was no longer latched on to Ginny’s pussy, Harry’s thrusts were causing Luna’s whole face to bounce along Ginny’s crotch, her breasts to bounce and slide across Ginny’s belly, which actually felt kind of amazing.</p>
<p>Ginny went back to lapping at them — it was hard to aim much, but Harry’s thrusts kept them moving over her tongue. It must have been working, because soon Luna’s belly began trembling as it flowed over Ginny’s breasts.</p>
<p>Luna let out a long sigh; Ginny could feel her collapse forward, could feel Luna’s breath against the inside of her thigh. Pushing up on her elbows, Ginny got more aggressive about lapping at her girlfriend and her husband.</p>
<p>Harry was swearing, but it was quietly; his balls were still loose, sliding along Ginny’s forehead. It didn’t sound as if he were going to be getting off any time soon. When was the last time that he had come… How many times? Four times in the last day? Five? Ginny wasn’t sure, but she was fairly certain that, like her, her husband hadn’t been so sexually satisfied in a long time. She was pleased and impressed that he’d been able to get so hard — <em>stay </em>so hard — but then, as she’d told Luna that morning, two naked women in your bed would tend to provide <em>some</em> inspiration.</p>
<p>Against the inside of Ginny’s thigh, Luna’s moans were beginning to rise in pitch and volume; Harry’s thrusts pushed Luna’s pelvis further up in the air, forcing Ginny to press further up on her arms. On either side of Ginny’s cheeks, Luna’s thighs were vibrating with building tension, rippling as Harry’s cock slammed home. Squeezing as if to hold on to the moment — and Ginny’s head.</p>
<p>Knowing that Luna was close, and not sure that she could hold on much longer, Ginny reached up with her lips and sucked in Luna’s slick clit.</p>
<p>That did it.</p>
<p>Ginny was quickly becoming a connoisseur of Luna’s orgasms. This was neither the wall-shaking bellow she’d given when Ginny and Harry had both licked her, nor screaming Ginny’s name as she had earlier that morning, nor the raucous laughter with which she’d punctuated her first fuck. This time, Luna’s release was long and sustained; she let loose a high moan into the flesh of Ginny’s thigh as her legs and arse tightened to keep Ginny and Harry both exactly where they were. The only movement that Ginny was aware of for a moment was the rhythmic pulse of Luna’s cunt against Ginny’s lips, her nose, and Harry’s cock.</p>
<p>Then the moment was gone and Luna went limp and collapsed onto Ginny, letting Harry slip out of her. “Oh,” said Luna.</p>
<p>“Um,” said Harry, voice higher than usual, the poor boy. Ginny could feel the tip of his cock slide along her forehead, trailing moisture, seeking for Luna’s cunt again.</p>
<p>Luna grunted softly. “Ow.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Um.”</p>
<p>Ginny could hear the tension in her husband’s voice, knew that, even having come, and come, and come, they couldn’t leave him hanging like this. <em>Suck him off,</em> she considered, <em>or…?</em></p>
<p>Then the image flashed into her mind of the fantasy that Harry had told her about the previous night. The fantasy that he’d wanked to all those years ago. Sliding out from under Luna’s still-boneless body, Ginny reached up and stroked her husband, which caused his mouth and eyes to close. “Luna, sweetie?”</p>
<p>“Mmm.”</p>
<p>“Think you can sit up? There’s something you and I can do for Harry that I think he’ll enjoy.”</p>
<p>Luna didn’t move, but sighed, “Oh. How nice.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. I think so.”</p>
<p>Harry grunted. “Ginny?”</p>
<p>“Come on, Loony, let’s sit you up.” Kneeling up, Ginny looked down at Luna, at her back, which was flushed, and at her arse, which was bright from Harry’s onslaught. “Come on.” Ginny helped Luna sit, pulled her so that Ginny was leaning against the headboard with Luna, lax, between her legs. Ginny cupped her hands around her friend’s — her lover’s — wonderful tits, pressing them together lightly even as she let her fingers play over those amazing nipples. She glanced at her husband.</p>
<p>He was kneeling at the foot of the bed, his eyes boring into Ginny’s. He knew <em>exactly</em> what Ginny had in mind.</p>
<p>Ginny smiled. “Luna, love, do you remember what we told you last night, how Harry used to lie in his bed, stroking that <em>lovely penis</em>, and thinking about —”</p>
<p>“About pressing them between my yabbos. Yes.”</p>
<p>“While I held them.” She grinned at her husband. “What a nasty mind you had, Harry. Did it look anything like this?”</p>
<p>“Nowhere near as sexy.”</p>
<p>Ginny grinned. He might still be angry with them — with her — but he was playing along. “Want to see if these feel as good as you thought?”</p>
<p>He didn’t answer, but moved up and straddled Luna’s waist and Ginny’s legs, and without preamble thrust his red, dripping penis up between the smooth, firm flesh of Luna’s breasts. “<em>Merlin!”</em></p>
<p>Ginny grinned. “Nice?”</p>
<p>Luna sighed, her head flopped back over Ginny’s shoulder. “Oh, yes. It feels quite lovely.”</p>
<p>Ginny bit her earlobe and gloried as Luna arched, her areolae bristling beneath Ginny’s fingers, and Harry hissed. “I’m glad it feels lovely. Harry?”</p>
<p>“<em>Merlin.</em>” He was picking up the pace of his thrusts. Looking up, Ginny saw that he was staring down at the two of them, grasping onto the headboard as he leaned over them.</p>
<p>Still grinning, Ginny glanced down to where his cock was disappearing and then pushing back up through the yielding mounds of Luna’s breasts, the insides of which were slickening with pre-cum. “Luna,” she whispered.</p>
<p>“Hmm.”</p>
<p>“Look down.”</p>
<p>Luna picked her head up slowly and then peered toward where Harry’s cockhead was playing peek-a-boo between her tits. “Mmm”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Mmm. Want to taste it?”</p>
<p>“Oh. May I?”</p>
<p>“Fine with me! Harry?”</p>
<p>“<em>SHIT!”</em></p>
<p>Ginny felt giddy laughter bubble up. “That’s a yes, Luna. Take a lick.”</p>
<p>Luna’s long tongue snaked out and, at the top of Harry’s up-thrust, lapped at the head of his cock, wetting it even more.</p>
<p>“<em>OH, FUCK!”</em></p>
<p>Out loud this time, Ginny said, “Taste nice?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes,” said Luna, stopping for a slurp and then continuing, “very interesting.” Another slurp. “A bit like Mandrake.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” said Ginny, remembering the smell of Neville’s salve. “Try kissing it.”</p>
<p>Luna let Harry’s cockhead slide against her lips.</p>
<p>“<em>AHH! SHIT!”</em></p>
<p>“Mmm.” Luna hummed. “May I —” Another kiss. “— take it into my mouth —” Kiss. “— like you did?”</p>
<p>“Don’t think Harry will mind.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“FUCK NO!”</em>
</p>
<p>Ginny watched as Luna opened her lips and that cock that Ginny had swallowed hundreds or perhaps thousands of times slid for the very first time into another woman’s mouth.</p>
<p>
  <em>“OH! FUCK!”</em>
</p>
<p>Ginny whispered, “Press your tits together for me, will you, Luna, love?”</p>
<p>Around Harry’s cock, which she was now swallowing rather expertly, Luna hummed, “Mmm.” Her hands slid up beside Ginny’s, taking over.</p>
<p>Ginny slid her now-free hands around her husband’s clenching buttocks. Leaning her head as far forward as she could, she joined Luna in licking his swelling erection.</p>
<p>
  <em>“SHIT! AW, SHIT! GINNY! LU—! LUNA!”</em>
</p>
<p>With one hand, Ginny reached around and found Harry’s testicles, which were quickly tightening as he approached orgasm. Knowing it would send him over the edge, Ginny did something she hadn’t tried in years: she slid her finger between his arse-cheeks and brushed the puckered hole there.</p>
<p>As she’d guessed, Harry arched back, his cock barely poking out from between Luna’s breasts, and howled, letting loose a surprisingly strong, surprisingly substantial stream of hot jism that sprayed onto both Luna’s face and Ginny’s own.</p>
<p>“Merlin,” gasped Harry, and collapsed off of them and onto the bed.</p>
<p>Giddy as she had been for large portions of the previous day — not quite eighteen hours — Ginny began to kiss and lick the cum off of Luna’s cheek, her nose.</p>
<p>Luna turned in her arms and began lapping like a kitten at Ginny’s face.</p>
<p>Just at the point where she could feel the flame reigniting — <em>No. Mustn’t. They’re done.</em> — Ginny felt Harry slide up her body and whisper something into Luna’s ear.</p>
<p>“Oh. Yes. That would be nice,” sighed Luna into Ginny’s mouth, and began to lick and nibble her way down Ginny’s chin and neck.</p>
<p>Harry, as always, was more direct, sliding down and taking Ginny’s nipple into his mouth.</p>
<p><em>“Hnh!”</em> The difference between Harry’s assertive attacj and Luna’s more indirect meander was definitely enough to short-circuit whatever bit of Ginny’s brain was anything like clear.</p>
<p>As soon as Luna’s mouth began to experiment with as many ways as it could of torturing Ginny’s right breast in the most delicate way imaginable, Harry left the left one, kissing his way down her belly and hip.</p>
<p>Being with one lover was an immersion — all-encompassing, shrinking the universe down to a single point of intersection.</p>
<p>Being with two was envelopment — expanding into their touches and through them out to the edges of the universe.</p>
<p>
  <em>Holy fuck.</em>
</p>
<p>Harry lifted Ginny’s leg, kissing his way beneath it.</p>
<p>“Uh… Harry…?”</p>
<p>“Shh.”</p>
<p>“Uh…” Ginny tried to remember why she was feeling guilty. It was there, somewhere, she knew…. “You… don’t… have to…”</p>
<p>“Oh, we don’t <em>have </em>to do anything,” murmured Luna. “We want to go down to you together. Isn’t that right, Harry?”</p>
<p>Ginny stared down into the dark flame of her husband’s gaze.</p>
<p>He pulled on her pubes with his teeth. “Yup.”</p>
<p>“Oh… Okay.”</p>
<p>And with that, Harry began to lick at her as he had learned to do so masterfully over the years, while Luna leisurely kissed her way down Ginny’s tummy and over her hip. At an achingly impossible moment, their tongues met around Ginny’s clit, and the infinite boundaries of creation beckoned.</p>
<p>: :</p>
<p>“Know why you passed out when we did that to you last night.” Ginny was tangled in their bodies, feeling the aftershocks of orgasm spark through her still.</p>
<p>“Oh?” Luna said against Ginny’s belly. “Yes.”</p>
<p>Ginny chuckled, petting Luna’s head and Harry’s, which lay between her breasts.</p>
<p>He was staring up at her, smiling but eyes still smoldering.</p>
<p>“Harry,” Ginny said, “I’m so sorry we started without you.”</p>
<p>He grunted, his stare just as intense. A small smile lightened his expression, however. “Glad I sent N’Koto and Jenkins away, then.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Merlin.” <em>What will Al Jenkins think! </em>Jessamyn, Ginny knew, would keep any opinions she might have firmly to herself. “They… You couldn’t hear us, could you?”</p>
<p>“Only once I was coming up the stairs,” Harry said. “Thick walls. What time is it?”</p>
<p>“Time?” Ginny blinked.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Harry sat up, searching through the robes that he’d shucked at some point.</p>
<p>“You let them go?” asked Luna, her gaze following Harry remarkably closely — for Luna anyway.</p>
<p>“Oh. Yeah.” Harry pulled legendary Uncle Fabian’s watch out from the pocket of his robes. “Almost one. We should all take a shower.”</p>
<p>A shiver passed through Ginny though she wasn’t sure why. “Harry?”</p>
<p>“Solved Luna’s case,” he said. “We’ve got some visitors coming in a bit.” Then he shook himself, that small smile returning. “That’s why I was hacked off when I came in, not because of what you two were up to.”</p>
<p>“What is it, Harry?”</p>
<p>He shook his head again. “I promised I’d let him explain. Come on. Let’s get cleaned off.”</p>
<p>: :</p>
<p>Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that, though they showered together, it was a relatively chaste affair, each of them cleaning the previous night’s stickiness and that morning’s away, doing each other’s backs perhaps, but no more than might be expected.</p>
<p>Harry’s mood continued to make Ginny unaccountably nervous, and Luna was unusually withdrawn. Ginny didn’t blame her. Whoever was coming, whatever the explanation was, it would make clear why Luna had lost her father, her boyfriend and twenty years of her life. It was enough to make anyone think about things a bit.</p>
<p>Ginny Scourgified their clothes. She found an outfit for Luna other than the faded pyjamas and the wonderfully obscene nightie: what was for Luna a fairly conservative ensemble of a knee-length skirt and a yellow top. Ginny pulled a set of Luna’s old robes over her t-shirt and jeans.</p>
<p>Harry was back in his Auror robes. He had his business face on. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs. They’ll be here soon.”</p>
<p>“They?” Luna asked.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” More than that he wouldn’t say.</p>
<p>They had just reached the kitchen when the doorbell tolled. “I’ll get it,” Harry said.</p>
<p>Ginny took Luna’s hand. “Okay, Loony?”</p>
<p>Luna nodded abstractedly. When Ginny squeezed her hand, Loony shot her a smile that communicated more animal panic than warmth.</p>
<p>“Come in,” Harry said, and three figures shuffled through the door: Padma and the Thomases — Parvati and Dean.</p>
<p>Padma looked guarded. Parvati glowered.</p>
<p>Dean was a wreck. Ginny hadn’t seen him like this in years. Since just after Luna’s disappearance. His skin was — for him — pale and bloodless. He had dark circles under his eyes, which were red and bloodshot. He’d been crying. He’d been drinking again.</p>
<p>Luna’s hand clutched at Ginny’s.</p>
<p>Harry cleared his throat. “We had put it together this morning — ”</p>
<p>“The blue and yellow stripes on the Snor — on the Basilisk egg,” said Luna, her voice barely above a whisper. “It was paint, wasn’t it.”</p>
<p>Harry nodded.</p>
<p>Harry looked at Luna, who was as white as she had been when she had been marble the day before, and then at Dean, who swayed next to his wife, who stood with her arms crossed. Padma had her hands on her sister’s shoulders. Again, Harry cleared his throat. “Dean came in and… confessed before we went and talked to him.”</p>
<p>Now they all stared at Dean, who was crying. Ginny had never seen him cry.</p>
<p>“Dean,” said Parvati, her voice flat.</p>
<p>Dean shook himself. “Wanted to get it for you, wanted to so badly, Luna, looked everywhere, knew you’d looked, so I talked to Hagrid and asked him, you know, to help me find someone…” Dean broke down, put his head in his hands, and sobbed. “<em>SO sorry, Lu!”</em></p>
<p>Ginny looked from Luna, who was stone-faced, to Dean, who was a mess.</p>
<p>Padma pushed her sister, whose arms were crossed in an increasingly tight knot. With a grunt, Parvati went and put her arms around her husband, who collapsed into them.</p>
<p>“He finally told me after Padma left last night,” Parvati said. “Said Hagrid helped him find a gent who was…” She glanced at Harry.</p>
<p>Harry nodded and took over. “The man Hagrid pointed Dean to, Esau Whitworth, is still a legitimate dealer in rare magical creatures, but we’ve always suspected that he had a bit of a sideline in the restricted ones. Could never quite catch him. I’ve sent my Aurors to raid his place and arrest him.”</p>
<p>“A-arrest?” Luna whispered.</p>
<p>Harry nodded. “Statute of limitations ran out on Dean’s negligence years ago, and on Whitworth’s fraud, but there’s no such thing on malicious manslaughter, and selling a fucking Basilisk egg and saying it’s a Snorkack egg is that at the very least.”</p>
<p>They all stared at Luna. Luna stood like the statue that she had been for two decades.</p>
<p>Still sobbing into Parvati’s shoulder, Dean cried again, “<em>So sorry, Lu!</em> If… If I’d known… Thought all this time I’d <em>killed you</em>, and your dad too, and, oh, God, just wanted to <em>die…!”</em></p>
<p>“Thank you for telling me, Dean,” Luna said, voice low but even. “I think you should leave now.”</p>
<p>Dean sobbed again, but it was Parvati who answered. “He’s been torturing himself for twenty years, Luna. He’s paid for his crime.”</p>
<p>Luna nodded. “Yes. But for me, all of this happened only yesterday. I am afraid that it will be quite a while before I am able to forgive you. Now,” she repeated, more firmly, “please leave.”</p>
<p>Dean shot her a look of pure shame, but Parvati shook her head, and he groaned. Bent, head once more in his hands, he shuffled back out the door.</p>
<p>“He really is sorry,” Parvati said. “I know that you have no reason to forgive him, but when you can, please, try.” When Luna gave a short nod, Parvati followed her husband out the door.</p>
<p>Padma watched them go and then turned somberly back into the room. “I’m so sorry, Luna. Are you all right?”</p>
<p>“No,” said Luna, as calm as ever, “I do not think that I am. However, physically I believe that I am perfectly healthy.”</p>
<p>Padma nodded. “I don’t know that the same can be said for Dean. Ginny, Harry. I’ll leave Luna in your hands. I know you’ll take care of her.” When they both nodded, she too left, closing the door behind her.</p>
<p>Ginny threw her arms around her oldest, youngest friend. “Oh, Luna.”</p>
<p>Luna stood rigidly in her embrace, even when Harry strode over and hugged her from the other side. “We’ll get Whitworth,” he muttered. “It’s not any consolation, but he’ll pay. We don’t think it was in any way because it was <em>you</em>, if that helps; we think he just wanted to make some gold and sow some havoc.”</p>
<p>“Actually, Harry,” said Luna, still staring at the door, “I don’t believe that that helps at all.” Gently, she disengaged herself, stepping back from them. “I love you both very much, but if you don’t mind, I should very much like to go down to my mother’s workshop and be alone for a while.”</p>
<p>“Luna — ” Ginny said, simultaneous with Harry.</p>
<p>“Do not worry. I do not wish to harm myself at all, but I do wish to scream rather loudly and break some things.” Luna nodded. “Yes. I think that I do. And I do not think that I should be able to do what I need to do if you were there with me.”</p>
<p>Ginny frowned and shot a glance at Harry, who shook his head. He said, “Do you promise to be careful?”</p>
<p>Luna nodded.</p>
<p>“Do you promise not to do anything to hurt yourself?”</p>
<p>Luna gave a mild scowl, and then nodded again. “Yes. I think that I can promise that.”</p>
<p>“If we give you an hour, do you think that you could do what you need to do in that time?”</p>
<p>“I’m not certain, but that should certainly be enough time to get a start.”</p>
<p>“All right,” said Harry, giving Ginny’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “We’ll go up to your room. If we don’t hear from you by two o’clock, we’re going to come down and make sure that you’re still okay.”</p>
<p>Luna smiled, stepped forward, and kissed Harry lightly. “Thank you, Harry. Thank you, Ginevra,” she added, kissing Ginny. Then she turned, spoke her own name, and stepped down into the darkness through the trap door, which she closed behind her.</p>
<p>Her heart in knots, Ginny looked at her husband.</p>
<p>He folded her in his arms. “I’m sure she’ll be all right, Gin,” he said. “She needs the space to grieve, and we need to give her that. And I,” he added, walking her to the stairs, “need to spend some time just with my wife. Okay?”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Ginny croaked, and walked with Harry up to Luna’s bedroom.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. First Person, Plural</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ginny let Harry lead her back up the stairs, past the old press on the first floor and up to Luna’s room. She was very aware of the size of him in a way that she hadn’t been in years — aware of the callouses on his hands and the silver in his hair.</p><p>As they reached Luna’s room, both of them gazing down at that bed that had been the scene of so much magic over the past day, rather than up at the achingly lovely ceiling, a pulse of <i>something</i> passed through Ginny — something lower than sound, brighter than light — and she gasped. “Luna.”</p><p>Harry squeezed her hand and nodded. His eyes showed concern but his brow was unfurrowed.</p><p>Another pulse of whatever it was passed through them, and Ginny and Harry both shivered.</p><p>He murmured, “She’s fine, love. Just blowing off some steam.”</p><p>“Hell of a lot of tea,” Ginny tried to joke, but it she knew she sounded more concerned than amused.</p><p>“She’ll be fine, Gin.” Harry took her in his arms. “Luna may not have the firmest grasp on what the rest of the world considers normal, but we have trust her to know her own needs. Her own limits. Just like we do with the kids.”</p><p>Ginny let her head fall against Harry’s chest. “But she’s not our child.”</p><p>“No,” Harry said. “She’s not.” Another pulse rippled up from the basement, making them both shudder. “Ginny. This has changed everything. What we’ve done with Luna.”</p><p>She started to disagree, but then looked up into his eyes, and saw the concern and sincerity there: fundamental Harry Potter. “Well, yeah. Having her back. Knowing what happened. It changes so much.”</p><p>“True,” said Harry slowly. “But not just that.” He stroked her hair. “Making love with her — with both of you — was really amazing. All of those adolescent fantasies come to life. And I can honestly say now that I know that I’m married to the sexiest woman in the world, because here I’ve had mind-blowing sex with another girl that any man that liked women at all would give up his eyes to take to bed, and I’ve realized…” He pulled her to him, sighing into her hair. “All I want is you, love.”</p><p>Ginny wasn’t sure which stunned her more: the statement or the raw feeling behind it. “I… But Harry…”</p><p>“I’m a simple bloke, love. I’ve loved fucking Luna, because she’s wonderful, and beautiful, and because fucking a beautiful girl is nice. Unbelievable. And fucking her while she’s eating your wife’s pussy and your incredible wife is licking at your balls — it’s fucking amazing. But it’s not the same as what I have with you.”</p><p>Ginny, who had teased Harry for decades because he couldn’t identify more than one feeling that he was experiencing at once, suddenly knew how he felt — knew what it meant to be so full of so many feelings that instead of being bands on a rainbow, they were a flurry of sparks, whirling too fast to follow, burning too hot to look at directly.</p><p>“Gin.” Harry stepped back, his hands on her shoulders. “Gin, if you need us to move forward like this — with Luna as part of the equation — or even if you need to… to be with Luna instead of… I am happy to do it. I love you. I love Luna, even if it’s not the same. But I love you. And I can see how happy she makes you.”</p><p>Tears overcame Ginny, because honestly, she couldn’t not cry. “Merlin, Harry. It’s not…” She burrowed back into his chest, felt him hesitate, but then wrap his arms around her. “You’re my husband. You’re the same man I’ve loved my whole adult life. I don’t know what this is with Luna. Honestly. But it doesn’t change that.”</p><p>He held her tight. When he spoke, his voice was thick. “Thank god. Because I… I wouldn’t stand in your way, Ginny, you know that, but it would…” Now he began to convulse within her arms. She could feel his throat working against the top of her head.</p><p>“Shh,” she says, as much for herself as for him, and the two of them — neither of them much given to crying — stand at the foot of Luna’s bed and sob, clutching each other like portkeys. Holding on for dear life.</p><p>Eventually, together, they both began to settle. His breathing became regular. Her vision cleared, though her cheeks were still wet.</p><p>“When I came in to find the two of you… I was so angry about Dean, about Whitworth, and then the two of you —”</p><p>“Sorry,” croaked Ginny.</p><p>“For what?” He sounded both miserable and amused. “It was the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”</p><p>“But it also made you wonder —”</p><p>“—if I was losing you. Yeah.”</p><p>“Oh, Harry.” She was desperately close to tears again, and she knew she couldn't do that to either of them. “Didn’t think you’d get rid of me that easy, did you? Leave me in bed with our incredibly sexy, incredibly alive friend, and boom, you’re shut of me?”</p><p>He snorted. “Damn. You figured out my dastardly plan.”</p><p>“Pretty stupid plan, Harry. I win every which way.”</p><p>“Oh, you do, do you?” He leaned back and smirked at her, face blotchy and wet, but a crooked smile in place.</p><p>“Yup. So here’s your choice, Harry: are you staying on the winning side, or not?”</p><p>“Oh, I could never leave your side, so long as you let me stay.” His smile softened, and then, as she’d hoped, he leaned back into her and gave her a long, warm, full-body kiss. The kind of kiss that can only come after fucking and fighting and children and years of being so close that you’ve forgotten. Not as pyrotechnic as their first kiss, or as desperate as the one she had given him all of those years ago on his birthday, or as electric as the one when they had finally made love, or the one the afternoon after the battle. This kiss was full of slow, deep fire, and they were just moths fluttering towards its light.</p><p>Eventually, he panted into her lips, “Ginny. Do you think we could…?” One of his hands was up her shirt and on her breast, the other down the back of her pants. She was astonished to fill his cock pressing against her belly.</p><p>“Uh-huh.” She was astonished that she had it in her to feel desire. But desire, apparently, was limited only by the flesh, and her flesh and spirit were both more than willing.</p><p>Without speaking any further, without parting any more than absolutely necessary, and without breaking that solar, immortal kiss, they divested themselves of clothing, lowered themselves to the bed, and Harry entered her — she took him in — and they made love.</p><p>The fuck was an extension of the kiss — not athletic or gymnastic, but slow and all-consuming.</p><p>“Oh, hell, Harry” Ginny groaned, “I can’t believe… you’re still…”</p><p>“Told you,” he panted into her ear, “you’re all I need.”</p><p>She laughed at the joy of it. “Don’t need to bring you young virgins to deflower?”</p><p>“Nope,” he groaned as she ran her fingers around his nipples. “‘less you want to.” His long fingers reached around her bum, his fingers sliding around his plowing cock and up her happily exhausted labia. “Just… want you.”</p><p>And then they fell into the fuck — the endless, eternal fuck — and rolled themselves to timeless ecstasy there on Luna’s bed.</p><p>As they lay, gasping, wrapped in each other, still kissing, a small almost-animal whine came from the floor to the side of the bed.</p><p>Luna sat in a patch of sunlight, leaning against the cupboard doors, her skirt up over her hips, her top up over her breasts. Her fingers were buried in her glistening pussy. She gave the whine again and shuddered, her eyelids fluttering closed. “That was even more beautiful than I thought it would be.”</p><p>“Luna.” Ginny was beyond shock. Certainly beyond shame. Mostly, in the moment, she was aware that Luna had burned off one of her eyebrows, that the knuckles between her thighs looked bloody, and that her always-flyaway hair was looking distinctly knotted and scorched.</p><p>“Better?” rumbled Harry.</p><p>“Much,” said Luna, a tremor passing through her. “I broke some things that I shall probably regret breaking, and cast some rather inadvisable spells, but then I came up here, and saw something that I have dreamed about so many times, and it was just as it should have been, only more so.”</p><p>“You could have joined us,” Harry said. He was softening within her, but Ginny found that she didn’t want to let him go.</p><p>“Thank you, Harry. And I look forward to doing so again soon. However, my vaginal entrance is quite sore, and I think that between all of the wonderful sex that you both have given me and my rather considerable grief I don’t know that even masturbating while watching you was a terribly good idea.” She removed her fingers with a slurp, wincing before her expression returned to its usual blissful state.</p><p>“You’re always welcome, Luna-love,” sighed Ginny, feeling her cunt slowly, tragically pushing Harry out.</p><p>“Thank you, Ginevra.” Luna smiled, and it was truly blinding. “And I will. But seeing the two of you fucking reminded me of why I had always wanted to see you: because you fit. You are perfect. I am so glad that I was finally able to see you as you should be.”</p><p>With a start, Ginny realized that — even before they’d found Luna — all of the sex of the past twenty-four hours or so had been one or the other of them pretending to be Luna. Or Harry, with Luna. But that Ginny and her husband had never just… fucked.</p><p>And as amazing as the tying up and the pretending had been — her with Harry, her with Luna, her with both of them — none of it had been what she and Harry had just shared.</p><p>Luna nodded as if she were reading Ginny’s mind. “I hope that I have the opportunity to fuck you both — each — many more times. I hope that we have a lot of sex, and that perhaps I will come truly to believe that you love me —” She raised her eyebrows, widening her eyes and silencing Ginny and Harry’s protests. “I know, of course, that you love me. Yet I find that knowing it and believing it are perhaps rather different things.”</p><p>Harry nodded, and the movement caused his cock to slip out from Ginny, and they both moaned at the loss.</p><p>Luna’s smile didn’t falter. “I want what you have,” she said simply. “It is quite wonderful for me to know — and truly to believe — that you love each other. It is even more wonderful to watch it, as I have now been privileged to do. Thank you.”</p><p>Ginny smiled back, her arms and legs still enfolding Harry. “Welcome.” She found her eyes filling again, but this time she knew just which part of the rainbow these tears came from: pure joy.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They showered again — easily, comfortably, no need left for titillation or exploration — healing Luna's self-inflicted wounds, regrowing her eyebrow, and combing out her hair. Together they dressed, and prepared for Teddy and Neville to arrive with the children and the other guests. Ginny was going to Apparate over to the Burrow and ask her mother if she might provide a bit of tea, since the larder at the Tower was bare, but as she opened the Tower's door, she found her mother coming up the walk with six large, enchanted hampers floating behind her, and found that, naturally, Molly Weasley had assumed that a welcome feast was in the offing for Luna, and so had prepared enough food for twice as many people as would actually be coming.</p><p>“Merlin, Mum!” laughed Ginny, “I won’t even begin to ask how you made all of this — how are we going to eat it!”</p><p>Smiling her most pleased smile, Ginny’s mother said, “Well, I suppose you could invite the rest of the family. After all, we are all overjoyed at Luna’s return. Ron and Hermione have Floo'd and said they're coming back as quickly as they can. Your other brothers have all asked....” She pursed her lips — Ginny noticing the wrinkles there more than usual because of the low angle of the autumn afternoon sunlight. “Though of course, only if Luna feels up to it. I'm so happy to see you, Luna, dear,” said Ginny's Mum, sending the various hampers to various strategic spots around the Tower's kitchen</p><p>When Ginny turned to ask, Luna’s shining eyes were all the answer that she needed. The ethereal blonde wafted across the floor to the anything but ethereal Molly Weasley, threw her arms around the older woman, and simply said, “Thank you, Mrs. Weasley.”</p><p>Voice and hands fluttery, Ginny's Mum patted Luna on the back. “You're very welcome, Luna, dear. Now, where should should we put the lemon squash?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>And so nearly the whole clan descended at five o’clock — George and Angie arriving first, as usual (never late to a party), followed by Percy, Audrey, and little Lucy, who would be starting Hogwarts in another year, Charlie, who was looking more like the youngest of the Weasley siblings rather than the second oldest, and Bill, Fleur, Victoire, and Teddy.</p><p>Ginny felt a fresh wave of joy and nostalgia wash through her, looking at the young couple — at their wonder and their joy at being, finally, engaged (something that everyone in the family had seen coming far longer than they had). But also it took Ginny’s breath away to watch them approach a thoroughly wider-eyed-even-than-usual Luna, and to realize with a visceral start that the two were in fact a bit older than Luna.</p><p>“Luna,” laughed Teddy, his hair a shade of turquoise that he hadn’t warn since childhood, “it’s so wonderful to see you again! I don’t know if you remember —”</p><p>“You’re Teddy Lupin,” said Luna, wonder creeping into her voice as it was so often on her face. “Of course. I saw you just… For me it was just last week that I saw you, only you were three. You have your father’s face.”</p><p>Ginny watched a familiar sad smile appear on that Lupin face. He flashed a glance over at Harry, who nodded back. “And my mother’s eyes,” finished Teddy, since that was the inevitable follow-up.</p><p>Luna tilted her head. “Also her hair.”</p><p>Victoire gave what was (for her, at least) a loud laugh. Teddy grinned. “Yeah. True. I… I wore it this color because I remember trying to make it match your eyes when I was little.”</p><p>“Oh,” said Luna, and Ginny was begin to recognize the particular panicked expression that mean that she was teetering at the edge of a temporal chasm. Then Luna blinked, the chasm closed, and the smile returned. “How nice.”</p><p>“He’s been telling me and Addie about you for years,” said Victoire.</p><p>“Addie?” Luna frowned.</p><p>“Oh, is she not here yet?” Teddy asked, looking around.</p><p>Ginny broke in, “She’s coming down from school with Neville and the kids. They should be here soon.”</p><p>“Oh, great!” said Teddy.</p><p>“She’s always been a huge fan of yours,” added Victoire. “She’s read everything you wrote.”</p><p>“You mean… the Cryptoquibligram?” Luna was now looking thoroughly confused, which wasn’t something Ginny had ever seen.</p><p>“No!” laughed Teddy. “Though I worked on those over at Harry and Ginny’s on rainy days a lot. You wrote those? They were <em>tough!”</em></p><p>Ginny smiled. Even after all of these years, the family had never been able to complete all of the <em>Quibbler’s </em>brain-teasers.</p><p>“I wrote… most of the magazine, especially after the war,” Luna said.</p><p>“Well,” said Victoire, reaching out and touching Luna’s shoulder with those ridiculously fine fingers of hers, “of course you did. It was the thaumazoological articles that I meant. Addie’s just taken over as the Magical Creatures prof at Hogwarts.”</p><p>“Oh.” Luna was looking more her astonished, everyday self. “And she read my articles.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” Teddy answered. “I’d seen them because of the puzzles and told her about them, and so when she was looking for a NEWT-level project, she went and found them. She’s based all of her research on them since we left school. She’s working on —”</p><p>But Luna never got to hear that Teddy and Victoire’s friend was working on a new edition of Luna’s favorite book, because at that moment, the Tower’s front door flew open and Neville arrived with the children. <em>All </em>of the children. James, Al, and Lilu, of course. Rose, Hugo, the dark-skinned, red-haired twins Roxanne and Freddy, Percy and Audrey’s little Molly (or Mojo, as she preferred to be known), and Victoire’s younger siblings Dominique and Louis.</p><p>At the back of the herd came two non-Weasleys — Neville’s Hannah and the famous Addie.</p><p>“Sorry, Mum!” called James, who seemed to have grown another two inches. “When word got out that we were coming down, <em>everyone</em> wanted to come!”</p><p>“Sorry, sorry, Luna,” Neville laughed, “but it was all I could do not to bring the entire student body.”</p><p>“The entire student body?” Luna’s eyes grew to breathtaking proportions. “But… Why?”</p><p>The kids all blinked at her. It was, of course, Albus who said what needed to be said. “Because you’re a legend. You fought in three of the most important battles of the Second War. And our parents — not just the family, but all of the grownups who were in the original DA — they all talk about you. As a friend.”</p><p>“A… a friend?” Luna looked closer to tears than smiling.</p><p>The small sea of red-tinged, auburn, and chestnut heads nodded. Al continued, “And of course, we’ve been hearing about you in Care for Magical Creatures too.” At the back of the throng, Addie laughed. “So we’ve all known about you our whole lives. And yeah, we all wanted to meet you, but —” He turned back to his cousins and they all nodded to him. “— there’s one of us that really wants to meet you more than anyone.” Albus put his hands on his sister’s shoulders and gently propelled her forward.</p><p>Ginny recognized the look on her daughter’s face; it was an expression that had stuck itself on her own face at the same age, every time a certain black-haired, green-eyed boy had crossed her path. Mingled joy, terror, and adulation.</p><p>Still looking close to tears, but smiling, Luna held out her hand. “You must be Lily.”</p><p>Lilu took Luna’s hand and nodded emphatically. Her cousins all laughed — they knew that Lily had been as starstruck by her namesake as any Quidditch fan had been with Ginny. Lily’s native fierceness showed through however; she turned and silenced her army of cousins with a glare, and then turned back to Luna, eyes aflame with pride. “Lily <em>Luna </em>Potter. And you’re… Luna Lovegood.” Luna began to say something, but Ginny knew she’d never manage: the floodgates were open and Lilu rattled on, “You fought with Mummy and Daddy at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries and at both of the Battles of Hogwarts and you saved Mummy’s life — <em>twice.</em> And you helped start the DA and you believed in Nargles and Snorkacks and Blibbering Humdingers and I believe in them too, even if <em>other people</em> don’t.” She shot a glare at Hugo, who was managing to look fairly respectful for once. “And you were a Ravenclaw and I am too, and you wrote lots of great puzzles and animal stories and… and… And even though a lot of people didn’t think you could still be alive, Mummy and I always knew you were alive. Oh, and Daddy too,” she added. <em>Noblesse oblige.</em> Then Lilu’s eyes grew Luna-large and her voice Luna-soft. “I’m so glad you are back.”</p><p>“I am too,” said Luna, and accepted a hug from her biggest, smallest fan.</p><p>The whole room burst into applause, and so only those standing closest — Lily’s brothers, Victoire, Teddy, and Ginny — could hear Lily say, “But I didn’t know you’d be so beautiful.”</p><p>As Luna hugged Lily, James muttered, “No kidding! Damn. She’s not attached or anything, right?”</p><p>“James!” groaned Al. “Merlin!”</p><p>“No,” laughed their mother. “That lovely lady is also my <em>oldest friend </em>and a quarter-century your senior. You might want to try finding someone a bit closer to your age.” <em>And I am </em>not<em> going to share my lover with my son, thank you very much.</em></p><p>“Yeah, maybe,” said James with a wink, “but she sure held up well!”</p><p>“You think,” said Harry, hugging his eldest from behind, “that I’d have dated just <em>anyone </em>while your gorgeous mother decided whether or not to grace me with her attentions?”</p><p>“You dated <em>that?”</em> James gasped. “No bloody way!”</p><p>Harry smiled. “Well, it was just the one date, really, but —” He smiled at her. “— it really should have been a lot more than. Don’t you think, Ginny?”</p><p>“Yup,” laughed Ginny. “I thought so at the time, and I think so now. You made an adorable couple.”</p><p>James scowled back at his parents, knowing he was missing the joke, and not sure it was one he wasn’t better off missing. Which Ginny was quite certain that he was. Finally he shrugged. “Well, I’d better get in line if I ever want to meet her.”</p><p>Each of the cousins greeted Luna warmly, and she seemed to glow more and more as the receiving line wound its way down.</p><p>The last two in the line where Hannah and Addie, who seemed barely to be holding herself back from exploding.</p><p>Hannah simply threw her arms around Luna, and began to weep copiously into her shoulder. Luna smiled and patted Hannah vaguely on the back. Eventually, Neville disentangled his wife from Luna, and led her over toward the Molly Weasley Commemorative Buffet.</p><p>That left only young Addie, who was positively vibrating in her black Hogwarts professor's robes. “Hello, you won’t have heard of me, I’m not a Potter or a Weasley or —”</p><p>“You must be Addie,” said Luna, taking Addie’s hand and striking her briefly speechless. “Teddy and Victoire were telling me that you are a thaumazoologist.”</p><p>Addie blinked and nodded, and then gave a shrug. “Wish they wouldn’t call me that. <em>Addie. </em>Got sick of the nickname years ago.” Still holding Luna’s hand, still staring at Luna’s staring eyes, she gave a nervous laugh.</p><p>Ginny found herself frozen. On the one hand, she wanted to help with the introduction. On the other, she felt a sudden lump of ice forming in her gut, and couldn’t for the life of her figure out why.</p><p>“Well,” Luna mused, “I should call you something that you will actually answer to. What’s your given name?”</p><p>Addie groaned. “Adrolfina. Other than Vickie and Teddy and my family people usually just call me by my last name.”</p><p>“Last name?” Luna seemed to be scanning Addie’s face for it.</p><p>Addie licked her lips. “Didn’t I say? Um. Sorry. It. Uh. Scamander.”</p><p>Luna became stiller than still. “Scamander.”</p><p>Addie nodded. “And that’s, see, I wanted to talk with you about some of your articles about Humdinger migration patterns —”</p><p>“Scamander,” Luna repeated.</p><p>“Yeah. See, I’m working with my dad, it’s on a new edition of —”</p><p>
  <em>“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”</em>
</p><p>“Um.” Addie’s cheeks were pinkening. Ginny tried to remember if she’d ever seen the normally self-possessed young woman look so thrown. “Yeah. Family thing. My great-grand-father —”</p><p>“Newt.” Luna was peering deep into Addie’s eyes now. “I do not believe that I could call you <em>Scamander</em>. The image that evokes for me is of quite an old man, and not a very pretty young woman.”</p><p>Addie swallowed. “Um. Thanks?”</p><p>“And you do not wish to be called <em>Addie</em> or <em>Adrolfina</em>.”</p><p>Addie shook her head.</p><p>“Would you answer to <em>Fina?”</em></p><p>Addie gave a nervous laugh. Her hand was shaking in Luna’s. “Uh, sounds like an Italian restaurant.”</p><p>“Ah, true.” Luna pursed her lips, and for a moment Ginny felt sure that Luna was about to lean forward and kiss Addie, but no: “<em>Rolf?”</em></p><p>Addie laughed again, but it was delighted laugh.<em> “Rolf?”</em></p><p>Luna nodded, looking rather pleased.</p><p>“Luna,” answered the newly-christened Professor Rolf Scamander, her voice low and sincere as she continued to clutch Luna's hand, “you can call me anything you want.” Then she looked at Ginny and Harry, Victoire and Teddy, and her face turned bright red.</p><p>“Oh, good,” sighed Luna and now she did lean forward and kiss Rolf — on the cheek. She slid her arm through Rolf’s and led her toward the food. “Now tell me about your research. I am certain that advances in the field —”</p><p>As they walked away, Rolf looked over her should and shot a nervous smile at her friends. Teddy and Victoire both laugh and gave her the thumbs-up signal.</p><p>“Wow,” said Teddy. “I didn’t expect that! I mean, did you know Luna swung that way?”</p><p>His arms around Ginny’s waist, Harry answered, “I think she’s been figuring some things out.”</p><p>Teddy and Victoire both laughed, and followed after their friend and Luna.</p><p>“It’s going to be okay, luv,” Harry whispered in Ginny’s ear. “It’s not like they’re getting married and having kids or anything.”</p><p>Ginny shook off the shock and what she now recognized as jealousy that had petrified her. “But… I feel so <em>stupid.</em> I mean…”</p><p>“I know, love.” He kissed her ear. “Luna loves you. Loves us. But it’s good for her to be around someone her own age.”</p><p><em>“I’m </em>her age! I’m…” But Ginny was so many things that she couldn’t even say another word.</p><p>“Ginny. Think about what we all said. After you and I made love. Luna wants what you and I have. For herself. Doesn’t she deserve that?”</p><p>Crying, Ginny nodded.</p><p>“And who knows when she’ll find it. A day ago, Luna didn’t even know it was <em>possible </em>for two women to love each other that way. Let her figure things out.” He kissed her neck and gave her a squeeze.</p><p>“Okay,” sighed Ginny, thinking that it was a rotten joke to have to let go of a new-found lover just as she was having to let go of her children.</p><p>“In the mean time,” Harry said into her ear in a manner that elicited responses that Ginny honestly wouldn’t have thought herself capable of, “we’ve told her she’s always welcome in our bed, and she made it very clear that she plans on taking us up on that.”</p><p>“Okay,” sighed Ginny again, much lower this time.</p><p>“Ew!” shouted James from the other side of the room. “Gross! Parent snogging!”</p><p>There was a general laugh around the room. Ginny flipped her eldest the bird, which evoked an even louder laugh.</p><p>And a delighted, delightful smile from a blonde, silvery-eyed face that Ginny had despaired ever to see again.</p><p>“Okay,” repeated Ginny once more, meaning it, turning in her husband’s arms and kissing him soundly both for her son’s benefit, and more particularly for her own.</p><p>It was of course at that precise moment that Molly and Arthur Weasley finally arrived, with Ron and Hermione in tow. “Sorry we’re late! Arthur working too hard as usual! Look who Floo’d in just now! GINEVRA MOLLY… POTTER! What do you think —!”</p><p>Hermione and Ron escaped toward Luna, waving wildly, Hermione weeping.</p><p>“I believe, Molly dear, that she is kissing her husband,” said Ginny’s dad, spinning his own spouse and snogging her to another round of cheers.</p><p>Once the hilarity had settled, and Ron had separated an utterly discomposed Hermione from Luna, the evening turned into something like a regular Weasley Family Picnic — people swapping stories, kids playing jokes on each other and (more frequently) on the adults. Various parents hugging their children, the children desperately trying to break away.</p><p>The one difference was that the center of gravity of this party was clearly Luna, and she was happier, basking in the combined love of the assembled extended clan, than Ginny could ever remember seeing her. Well, except for a couple of occasions the previous night. And earlier that day. In bed.</p><p>It was really… difficult having all of those thoughts and memories so close to the surface at a family do.</p><p>And it was very confusing to watch Addie’s — Rolf’s — bright infatuation, which Luna seemed to be reveling in, and <em>not</em> feel jealous.</p><p>Too soon, Neville called out, “It’s almost curfew.” There was a groan from the younger members of the party. “Yes, yes, I know we would all love to stay, but the agreement that I made with you and with the headmistress was to return to school before the curfew bell rang. Do we want her to be glad that she allowed us to come and celebrate with Luna, or do we want her to regret it?”</p><p>“Glad,” grumbled most of the kids. James, naturally, grumbled something unrepeatable, earning him suitably disapproving glares from both of his parents — who had just put that particular unrepeatable word into practice more often over the previous day than they could ever remember doing.</p><p>All of the kids went to say goodbye to their parents and siblings. Ginny and Harry hugged each of their kids in turn; as soon as Lilu had received her parental blessing, however, she ran over to Luna, who was talking to Bill and Victoire, and stuck out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Madam Lovegood.”</p><p>Luna gathered Ginny’s gangly eleven-year-old daughter up in her arms and hugged her. “It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Lily. And you must call me Luna, please. I shall write to you, if I may.”</p><p>Lilu’s face shone. “Oh, <em>please!”</em> she said, throwing her arms around Luna’s neck and kissing her cheek. “Bye! Bye, Mummy, bye Daddy! Bye everyone!” And she followed the rest of the kids outside.</p><p>“Professor Scamander,” called Neville as he created a portkey out of a long scarf, “will you be returning with us?”</p><p>Rolf (it was going to take some getting used to, calling her that) blinked at Victoire and Teddy, who were talking with Charlie, and then to Luna, who gave her a warm smile. “Um, would you mind if I found my own way back? I don’t have rounds until Sunday night.”</p><p>Neville smiled back at her. “Of course not. Goodbye, everyone! Welcome home, Luna.”</p><p>The party began to break up after that. Ginny’s Dad was exhausted after a long week, and her mother wanted to make sure that her husband could Apparate without incident. (Ginny suspected more snogging was on the agenda, but didn’t particular care to ask.) Ron and Hermione, who had traveled back from Brazil as soon as they heard about Luna’s return, needed to get back to the conference — and their second honeymoon. Percy and Audrey needed to get Lucy to bed (much to her loud disgust), and George and Angelina, Bill and Fleur were all off to catch the end of a broadcast of an American Quodpot match — Angelina had taken a passion for the game, and so far had managed to share it with George and Fleur — Fleur giggled something in French that sound as if it were about the fit of the players’ uniforms. And Bill of course, enjoyed anything that Fleur enjoyed.</p><p>That left Ginny and Harry, Luna, Charlie, Victoire, Teddy, and Rolf, and they all cleaned up together, even as Luna, Charlie, and Rolf shared stories about dragons and other beasties.</p><p>Once the kitchen was once again clean, Charlie suggested that they all go down to the Wyvern, Ottery St. Catchpole’s small wizarding pub, where there was usually a band and always good mead. Victoire, Teddy, and Rolf all quickly agreed</p><p>Harry shook his head, and Ginny found herself agreeing. It had been a long, long, eventful day and a half.</p><p>“Come with us, Luna,” Rolf said, “we can dance.”</p><p>Ginny found herself staring at Luna, who was standing undecided, found herself thinking, <em>Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.</em> And angry to be thinking such things.</p><p>“I don’t like dancing, actually.” Luna smiled back at Ginny, and then turned to Rolf. “I’ll join you at the Wyvern in a few minutes. I should like some time with Harry and Ginny.”</p><p>The young contingent took this at face value, Rolf looking very happy — and Ginny couldn’t help but be happy for her. Charlie raised an eyebrow. “Go, Charles,” Luna said, “Ginny and Harry are my best friends, and they brought me back to life, and I feel as if I really should thank them properly.”</p><p>Charlie gave his usual gruff laugh, and walked to the door. “Bye, Gin, Harry! See you at the Wyvern, Luna.”</p><p>As soon as Charlie closed the door, Luna sprinted to Ginny and Harry — moving more quickly than Ginny could remember her doing except in combat. She threw her hands around them both. “I love you, Ginny. I love you, Harry.”</p><p>“Love you,” Ginny and her husband muttered into the hug.</p><p>“I think,” whispered Luna, “that Rolf finds me attractive.”</p><p>Ginny laughed. “I think you’re bloody well right!”</p><p>“I think that she is a… a lesbite?”</p><p>“Lesbian,” Harry said, stroking Luna’s hair. “Yeah. She is.”</p><p>“Hmm.” Luna rested her head in the crevice between Harry’s chest and Ginny’s breasts. “I have been thinking very hard about what we discussed this afternoon.”</p><p>“Luna,” Ginny found herself saying, “Addie — Rolf is a wonderful girl. We’ve known her for… for years. And she clearly <em>really </em>likes you.”</p><p>“You think so?” came the muffled question.</p><p>“Yeah,” chuckled Harry, stroking Ginny’s hair and Luna’s both, now. “We think so.”</p><p>Ginny looked her husband in the eye, looking for his strength. “We love you, Luna. We will always love you. But you have a chance to find someone who’s just yours…”</p><p>Luna lifted her head. “Thank you.” She kissed Ginny on the lips, and whispered into them, “You will always be my very best friend, Ginevra. Always.” She kissed Harry on the lips and said, “And you will always be my Harry. You will always be my first, and I will always treasure that.”</p><p>Harry’s grimace of a smile reflected the conflict in Ginny’s heart. “Go. We won’t wait up.”</p><p>Luna smiled brilliantly. “I do love you both.” She skipped toward the door and then turned back. “You know, it occurs to me, I do not know if a romantic relationship between myself and Rolf is likely to establish itself terribly quickly, if at all. She will be teaching. Until such time, would the two of you mind allowing me to join you in bed so that we can all fuck some more?”</p><p>Harry coughed, but Ginny had seen this coming. “We’d love that, Luna. You are always welcome in our bed.”</p><p>“Oh.” Luna glowed, and Ginny could make out the ghost of those amazing nipples through her top. “Thank you. I love you both very much.” And with that, Luna Lovegood opened the door and left the Tower for the first time in twenty years.</p><p>Ginny and Harry stood there, both looking at the door, until long after the <em>pop</em> of Luna’s Apparition had faded.</p><p>At last, Ginny squeezed Harry’s hand. “Come on, luv,” she said. “Let’s go up to sleep.”</p><p>He leaned in and kissed her, and her body could feel the echo of that wonderful, amazing, astonishing kiss from that afternoon. “To sleep.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Epilogue — Future Perfect</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="">“Merlin, Mum, give over!” said Lily, her grin a rictus of exasperation. “Go already. I’m sixteen, not six. And it’s not like I’m going to blow the house up, like James might have, or invite all my pals, like Al!”</p>
<p class="">Sighing, Ginny looked up at her daughter, who’d shot up another two inches since the beginning of the school year. Babies… “We wouldn’t have left them alone at all,” she said, and smoothed her daughter’s hair back off of her face.</p>
<p class="">When Lily shook the hair defiantly back into her face, Harry laughed, the traitorous bastard, and said, “In any case, we know our Ravenclaw. You just want to tuck into your Christmas books.”</p>
<p class="">Lily shot him a smirk — funny how Ginny always got the vexation while Harry always got the grin — and hugged them both. “Wish I could go with you.”</p>
<p class="">“Luna and Rolf had something they wanted to ask us about,” said Harry with a very parental shrug.</p>
<p class="">“Besides,” said Ginny, jumping in, “you get to see them all of the time at school. We haven’t had a chance actually to spend time with them since Luna’s birthday.” Her twenty-fifth/forty-fifth. Fifth anniversary of her and Rolf meeting. Second anniversary of their wedding…</p>
<p class="">“Though why those two would want to spend time with a boring old pair like you two, Merlin only knows.”</p>
<p class="">Harry poked Lily in the ribs, setting off a predictable squeal of laughter. Lily grabbed her father’s finger before he could attack again, and her face took on a quizzical seriousness. “Daddy? Did you really, you know, date Luna?”</p>
<p class="">Harry shrugged.</p>
<p class="">“I mean,” said Lily, “she and Rolfie seem so happy, you know? It’s hard to think of her dating — ” Harry raised an eyebrow and she ducked her head. “I mean, not dating you, just… You know. A guy.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny leaned forward and kissed Lily on the cheek. “It’s not as if it’s an either/or thing, you know.” Not as if anything with Luna is that simple.</p>
<p class="">“‘Course.” Lily nodded seriously and then smiled, hugging her parents. “Give Luna and Rolfie my love!”</p>
<p class="">As Ginny and Harry walked out into a slushy Grimmauld Place, he murmured to her, “Why the fascination with Luna’s love life?”</p>
<p class="">Ginny shrugged. “Lily’s always been a bit obsessed with Luna.”</p>
<p class="">“Yeah,” said Harry, scowling. “I guess… I don’t want Lily thinking she should be interested in girls — or boys, or both — just because Luna is.”</p>
<p class="">Ginny squeezed his hand. “Do you really think our daughter would do anything she didn’t want to?”</p>
<p class="">Harry smiled at that. “No. I guess not.”</p>
<p class="">“Besides,” Ginny whispered in his ear, “her mother is interested in girls because Luna is. Well. Is interested in Luna, anyway.”</p>
<p class="">He shivered and turned, kissing her. “You still okay with that? She hasn’t… been with us in a while. Last winter.”</p>
<p class="">“Harry,” she sighed into his neck. “Merlin, I’m a lucky witch. A gorgeous younger woman stops hopping into our bed and my husband’s worried about <em>me</em>.”</p>
<p class="">“You know you’re enough for me.”</p>
<p class="">“As you are for me, luv.” She kissed his chin. “Come on. Let’s go see what the love birds want.”</p>
<p class="">: :</p>
<p class="">It was as always an eerie pleasure to walk into the re-vivified, re-messified Tower. Luna’s home was Luna’s once more — cluttered, chaotic — and the twenty-year sterile, tidy span existed now only in Ginny’s memory.</p>
<p class="">“Harry! Ginny!” Luna wafted over to them from the oven, which seemed to be emitting lavender smoke. “It’s lovely to see you.” As always, she kissed each of them warmly on the lips. Even as the kiss warmed Ginny, it made her uncomfortable. She knew it made Harry uncomfortable. She assumed it made Rolf uncomfortable.</p>
<p class="">And yet none of them seemed capable of asking Luna to stop.</p>
<p class="">As they shed their robes — London sleet had given way to snow in Devon — Harry asked, “Where’s Rolf?”</p>
<p class="">“Oh,” sighed Luna, meandering back toward the oven. “She wanted to get changed.” With a vague flick of her wand, Luna opened the oven door, revealing a beautiful roast… something. Ginny wasn’t sure she wanted to know what species the meat was from, but it smelled delicious.</p>
<p class="">“Was she up with her beasties today?” Harry asked, nostrils flaring.</p>
<p class="">“Hmm?” Luna cocked her head, leaving the roast floating in mid-air. “No. We’ve been home all day.” With a nod, Luna finished transporting the roasting pan to the counter.</p>
<p class="">“Changed?” Harry asked.</p>
<p class="">That didn’t sound like Rolf at all. As long as they’d known Addie Scamander, she’d never dressed up of her own volition, preferring work clothes and boots to dress robes. “I hope she’s not getting done up on our account!” Ginny laughed.</p>
<p class="">Luna turned to them once more, smiling. “Well, of course… Oh.” Her eyes flew disconcertingly wide. “Oh, dear. I’ve done it again. I’ve forgot to tell you why we’ve asked you.” Luna’s face took on what was for her a pensive expression. “I suppose I should wait for Rolf to be here before we discuss it.”</p>
<p class="">“All right,” Ginny laughed, giddy even now that the wonder that was Luna had been returned to her — to all of them. “Need some help with the roast?”</p>
<p class="">“Oh, no, thank you,” Luna sighed, undoing the button to her robes. A blue jewel caught the light.</p>
<p class="">“Is that… your choker?” Harry asked.</p>
<p class="">“Hmm?” Luna touched it with one long finger. “Oh. Yes.”</p>
<p class="">Harry’s eyebrows flew up into his hairline and he caught Ginny’s eye.</p>
<p class="">What the hell? Luna had always worn the choker — and the incredibly naughty nightie — when she had joined Ginny and Harry in bed. Ginny hadn’t ever seen her friend put it on for any other occasion. It had been almost a year, and though Rolf knew… Why…?</p>
<p class="">“Oh, Rolf,” sighed Luna, “don’t you look lovely.”</p>
<p class="">Down the staircase came Rolf — Adrolfina Scamander — very lovely indeed in a midnight blue silk dress that clung to her body in a manner that Ginny knew that even Harry would notice.</p>
<p class="">Like Luna, Rolf was a beautiful young woman. Like Luna, she wore her beauty carelessly, without any apparent awareness or effort. It was part of their charm, as women and as a couple. Yet there was nothing negligent about Rolf’s appearance tonight. She was dressed to kill.</p>
<p class="">She was also looking supremely self-conscious, her eyes downcast in a way that Ginny couldn’t remember them ever being before.</p>
<p class="">Seeing her husband’s mouth wide open, Ginny laughed in spite of her own growing uncertainty. “You do, Rolf. You look gorgeous.” Harry nodded. “Lily sends you both her love, by the way.”</p>
<p class="">Now the familiar spark lit Rolf’s face and her eyes flashed up. “She’s bloody brilliant. Has she told you about the Cockatrice-breeding project that she’s been helping me with?”</p>
<p class="">And that launched them into a wonderful and almost normal dinner — at least, as normal as dinner with Luna and her wife could or should ever be.</p>
<p class="">It didn’t stop flutters of anxiety from passing around the table — to everyone except Luna, of course. Ginny wasn’t sure what the two girls — women — were up to, but she was fairly certain that a nice meal wasn’t the end of it.</p>
<p class="">As they washed down a wonderful chocolate torte with a lovely raspberry-tinged mead, Ginny finally asked, “So, ladies. What was it you wanted to talk to us about?”</p>
<p class="">Alarm flared in Rolf’s eyes, but Luna took her wife’s hand and smiled, calm as ever. “Yes, dear, I apparently forgot to tell them, but I know that they won’t mind.”</p>
<p class="">“Mind?” asked Harry, putting down his glass.</p>
<p class="">“Well, yes,” said Luna with a broad smile, “I don’t think you’ll mind, you see, because it involves sex, which I know that you both enjoy as much as we do.”</p>
<p class="">Rolf and Harry suddenly both looked as if they wanted to hide beneath the table.</p>
<p class="">“Sex?” Ginny asked.</p>
<p class="">“Well, yes,” Luna agreed, looking quite pleased. “Since Rolf and I both want to get pregnant, you see, that seemed like the best way about it.”</p>
<p class="">“Sex?” Harry asked.</p>
<p class="">“Pregnant?” asked Ginny. “<em>Both?</em>”</p>
<p class="">“Oh, yes,” said Luna, opening her robes further to reveal that beneath them she was wearing only the magical sky-blue silk negligee. “You see, we both rather love babies, and we both rather want them, and while Rolf has never been with a man, she is quite fond of Harry and, of course, she has always found you desperately attractive, Ginny.”</p>
<p class="">“Me?”</p>
<p class="">Rolf’s face was bright red, but her eyes bored into Ginny’s. “That’s, um, why I’ve never felt jealous when Lu, um, joined you guys. Envious, I guess, a bit, but… I thought she’d talked to you about this, but I guess she’s been off Snorkack hunting…?”</p>
<p class="">Luna nodded, smiling.</p>
<p class="">Rolf’s eyes flashed first to her wife, then back to Ginny, and then to Harry. “And… Lu’s told me about… that first time with you, Harry. And… with both of you, how you, um, helped, Ginny, and honestly, Lu made it sound like the sexiest fucking thing ever, but then everything about Lu is the sexiest fucking thing ever, you know?”</p>
<p class="">Ginny looked at Luna, half-dressed, licking raspberry mead off of her finger, and couldn’t help but nod in agreement.</p>
<p class="">In Rolf’s dark blue dress, a tiny half-moon of darker shadow revealed a nipple rising beneath the silk on each breast. Her eyes still on Ginny, Rolf reached across and took Harry’s hand. “Would you do that for me, Ginny? Harry? Would you do for me… what you did for Luna?”</p>
<p class="">Harry licked his lips. With his free hand, he took Ginny’s. “I’d be honored.”</p>
<p class="">Luna reached out, taking Ginny’s other hand, and Rolf’s. “And you, Ginny? Will you fuck my beautiful wife with your husband? And me, of course, since we're both ovulating?”</p>
<p class="">Heart beating in her throat, Ginny nodded. Babies…</p>
<p class="">Luna stood, releasing their hands and letting her robes fall to reveal the marble-white body that did such unforeseeable things to Ginny’s heart, and to the rest of her body. “Oh, good,” Luna said, leading the other three away from the table and toward the stairs. “I’ve enlarged the bed. I’ve been thinking of some ways for the four of us to enjoy each other that I think you will all find quite interesting.” She stopped at the base of the stairs and turned to the other three. “You brought me back to life here, Ginny and Harry. You changed my life here, Rolf. It seems appropriate that it will have been the place where we kindled new lives as well, don’t you think?” When Ginny, Harry, and Rolf all nodded mutely, she smiled, turned again, and walked up the stairs, silk-draped arse swaying in negligent seduction, leading them up and on into the future.</p>
<p class=""># #</p>
<p class="">When Lorcan and Lysander were born, their eyes burned bright green.</p>
<p class="">Mind and heart full, Ginny wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that she loved them.</p>

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    <p>~FIN~</p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I've adapted this fic as a novel-length original piece of fantasy erotic romance, entitled <a href="https://stilpt.us/product/by-the-numbers/?utm_campaign=AO3&amp;utm_source=3PS">By the Numbers<br/>
</a>.</p><p>Also, FYI: Along with a group of fanfic writers (including deadwoodpecker, Meyers1020, TheWordsinMyHead, PotterFanatic17, and LegendDairy) I am, as K.D. West, releasing an anthology of original fantasy novellas, <a href="http://stilpt.us/product/into-the-mystic/?utm_campaign=AO3&amp;utm_medium=prologue&amp;utm_source=3PS">Into the Mystic</a>. It's currently in pre-order, but hits the shelves in ebook and paperback on Friday, June 5. </p><p>  <a href="http://stilpt.us/product/into-the-mystic/?utm_campaign=AO3&amp;utm_medium=prologue&amp;utm_source=3PS"><br/>
Check it out!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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